The Empire Trilogy Part 4

Already the leading contingents had turned the corner from the Castle Yard and were moving up Dame Street beneath the tossing, brilliant roof of flags and bunting. First came the Mounted Police, men with granite faces on su-perb, caracoling horses; as the Major made his way through the crowded entrance to Jury's a great cheer was sent up to welcome their arrival at the Viceregal Stand. The hotel foyer was deserted. Everybody was either on the street or at some vantage-point on one of the upper storeys. But as the Major, without impatience, was climbing the stairs to his own room, he almost collided with a gentleman coming down in great haste. He glanced at the Major and then cried: "Man, what a stroke of luck! I've been looking for you everywhere." It was Boy O'Neill, wild-eyed and in a great state of excitement.

"Edward told me you had a room with a view. You don't mind, do you? Can't see a blessed thing from the street. Left the ladies up on the landing above. Quick, we'll miss it all."

Mrs O'Neill and Viola, looking tired and rather cross, were standing near a window entirely blocked by a group of very fat and ecstatic ladies. They brightened up when they saw the Major.

The Major opened the door of his room and stood aside for the ladies. Boy O'Neill thrust them aside, however, sped across the room and threw the window up with a crash. The skirl of pipes filled the room, diminishing gradually as they pa.s.sed on towards College Green.

"The Irish Guards," groaned O'Neill. "We missed the pipers." He craned out over the street. "Here come the demobbed lads."

While her father and mother gazed hungrily down at the pa.s.sing troops and recited the names of regiments (the Royal Irish, the "Skins," the Royal Irish Rifles, the Connaught Rangers, the Leinster, the Munster Fusiliers), Viola O'Neill, who had stationed herself at another window with the Major, kept turning to bestow smiles and lingering glances on him.

"Will there be tanks, Major?" she inquired, opening her eyes very wide.

"I expect so," replied the Major gloomily.

"I'm sure I shall be frightened if there are," Viola went on, running the tip of her tongue around her parted lips. "I mean, just the sight of them."

"Wait! Is it them?" barked O'Neill from outside the other window. "Is it them or is it not?"

With feigned interest Viola leaned out to see what her father was looking at. "I've no head for heights," she a.s.sured the Major. "I'm afraid I'll fall if I lean any farther." And her small hand slipped into the Major's large paw, gripping it tightly. Frozen with alarm, the Major stared down at the grinning, jauntily striding Munster Fusiliers. The child was flirting with him! And she was certainly no more than fifteen years old. Although today her hair had been released from its pigtails and hung in thick shining tresses, she looked if anything younger than she had on their previous meeting in the Palm Court of the Majestic. What if the O'Neills should suddenly look back into the room and see him holding hands with their daughter?

"It is!" roared O'Neill from outside. "It's them! It's the Dubs! I can see them."

The volume of cheering below in the street increased to a deafening roar as the Dublin Fusiliers swung into sight. Viola withdrew a little from the window, making a face at the noise, and the Major took the opportunity of relinquishing her hand. But under the pretext of looking at something in the street she changed her position so that her perfumed tresses brushed against his chin. A scent of warm skin rose from her bare neck. The Major stepped back hurriedly and busied himself with lighting his pipe. And not a moment too soon. The O'Neills, hoa.r.s.e with cheering, had just decided to restore their heads to the room.

The parade dragged on for another hour-an eternity it seemed to the Major, who presently retired to sit in an armchair with a newspaper. When at last the O'Neills had been granted their first view of armoured cars and tanks (Viola had gasped with emotion at the sight of the monsters creeping along Dame Street and silently besought the Major for comfort with her lovely grey eyes) and the parade had come to an end, Boy stepped back satiated from the window and remarked cryptically: "That should give the blighters something to think about."

His face appeared less drawn and yellow than when the Major had seen him at the Majestic and his listless manner had been replaced by a disquieting nervous energy. He'd never felt better, he a.s.sured the Major. Found a new doctor who'd done him the world of good...indeed, he felt a new man. He wouldn't give a farthing for your Harley Street specialists. "I feel a new man," he repeated categorically. Saying this, he looked angrily round the room, as if expecting the Major to disagree with him.

The O'Neills were going to spend the afternoon and evening in Kingstown. There were two ships in Kingstown harbour, H.M.S. Umpire Umpire and H.M.S. and H.M.S. Parker Parker, which were to be illuminated that evening to supplement the bonfires and fireworks. It should be a splendid sight. Would the Major not care to come along? The Major, whose patriotic zest had lapsed once again into apathy, declined. He said vaguely that he had to go and visit an acquaintance. When the O'Neills had gone the Major had lunch and went for a stroll. The streets were still packed with rowdy, enthusiastic men and women of all cla.s.ses, many of them still wearing rosettes or Union Jacks. But now (or so it seemed to the Major, who was out of sorts) their enthusiasm had already begun to wear an aimless air. Peace had been celebrated; now there was the future to think about. The pubs were doing a thriving business, full of shouting and good cheer. As he pa.s.sed their open doors he kept hearing the same song: "Tipperary" and other songs from the first year of the war. To the Major they sounded incongruous and pathetic. Dublin was still living in the heroic past. But how many of these revellers had voted for Sinn Fein in the elections?

On Monday morning the Major read in the Irish Times Irish Times that Peace Day had been a splendid success: "The section of demobbed soldiers and sailors revealed the spirit of camaraderie that prevails in their ranks and the democratic side of army life. Men with top-hats walked beside men in their working clothes. Spats moved in time with hobnailed boots." There was also an account of how an ex-Dublin-Fusilier had marched over the whole route from the Castle to St Stephen's Green on crutches. By the time he reached the Green his palms were bleeding from the friction. When asked why he did not fall out he replied: "No, I knew it was my last march and I wouldn't fall out while I had a breath left in my body." that Peace Day had been a splendid success: "The section of demobbed soldiers and sailors revealed the spirit of camaraderie that prevails in their ranks and the democratic side of army life. Men with top-hats walked beside men in their working clothes. Spats moved in time with hobnailed boots." There was also an account of how an ex-Dublin-Fusilier had marched over the whole route from the Castle to St Stephen's Green on crutches. By the time he reached the Green his palms were bleeding from the friction. When asked why he did not fall out he replied: "No, I knew it was my last march and I wouldn't fall out while I had a breath left in my body."

Only towards evening had a rowdy element manifested itself. Young men carrying Sinn Fein flags and singing "The Soldier's Song" had gathered outside the Post Office in Sackville Street. There had been a few scuffles before the po-lice arrived to disperse them. Later in the evening a large crowd had threatened to throw a soldier into the Liffey at Ormond Quay. A police sergeant coming to his rescue had been shot at close range and was now lying gravely ill in hospital. But when one considered the magnificence of the occasion, the n.o.bility of the marching troops, the enthusiasm of the cheering crowds, perhaps these incidents might represent only the tiniest flaw in the smooth and majestic edifice of Peace Day-a flaw that was scarcely visible to a man of broad vision.

The Major was now faced with the alternative of abandoning Angela and crossing to England or returning to Kilnalough to a.s.sume his heavy but nebulous responsibilities as her fiance. Unable to make up his mind to do the one thing he was equally unable to make up his mind to do the other. The result was that for the time being he remained irresolutely in Dublin.

One day, while on a tram returning from Kingstown where he had spent the afternoon looking at the yachts and sitting in tea-shops, he suddenly found himself in the middle of a disturbance. The tram had come to a halt at the end of Northumberland Road just short of the ca.n.a.l bridge. A dense crowd had formed and motor cars had stopped on each side of the bridge. All the pa.s.sengers were on their feet trying to see what was going on. Impatient with the delay, the Major decided to walk and forced his way through the crowd as far as the bridge. Abruptly shots rang out from close at hand and the crowd convulsed, forcing him back against the parapet. He almost fell but somehow managed to cling to the brick-work and pull himself up. On the far side of the ca.n.a.l two men in trench coats sprinted away in the direction of the quays. A tall, strongly built man lumbered after them, his movements impeded by a sandwich-board that hung to his knees; in his right hand he carried a revolver. Behind the southern wall of the ca.n.a.l the Major glimpsed the khaki uniforms of British soldiers. There was a volley of rifle shots and the man in the sandwich-board was buffeted by an invisible wind. A few yards farther on he paused, raised his revolver and fired back across the ca.n.a.l at the soldiers; then he hastened on again. More rifle shots. Once more the big man was buffeted, then ran on clumsily a few yards. He was shouting something. His companions had vanished by now. Abruptly he collapsed inside the sandwich-board, subsided slowly to his knees and hung there, head lolling, arms trailing, still supported by the boards, like an abandoned puppet.

Slowly the crowd began to move again, stunned and cautious, releasing the Major. He moved forward a few steps until he could see what had stopped the traffic on the bridge. An old man-white moustache, grey face spattered with scarlet-lay on his back, eyes rolled up beneath the lids so that only the whites were visible. A gold watch, linked by a chain to the top b.u.t.tonhole of his waistcoat, still lay in the palm of his right hand encircled by long ivory fingernails.

Shaken, the Major shoved his way through the crowd in the direction of Mount Street. The big man still hung like a rag doll strapped into the sandwich-board. The Major was close enough now to read in black letters HOLY MARY MOTHER OF G.o.d PRAY FOR US SINNERS! The sandwich-board was made not of wood but of iron; the metal, deeply scored by bullets, gleamed through the torn paper. The big man had been using it as a suit of armour.

The next day he read an account of the incident. The old man was an Englishman, of course, a retired army officer who worked in the Intelligence Department in Dublin Castle. He was a widower and lived near by in Northumberland Road. He had been coming home from his office after work when a man carrying a sandwich-board had stepped out of the crowd and asked him the time. And someone had heard the man say: "Ah then, your time has come!" and with that he had raised a revolver to the old man's head and pulled the trigger. But the a.s.sa.s.sin had been unlucky. A party of British sol-diers had just finished searching a house beside the church on the corner and they had been ready for trouble. The man in the sandwich-board had died without giving his name. Who was he? n.o.body knew. The unknown murderer had been carrying a sandwich-board with a religious message (the Major overheard someone in Jury's say with a laugh) because it was thought that Englishmen, Protestants, would turn their eyes away from the name of Our Lady, and these days so many people were being stopped and searched for arms...

The Major read this newspaper account and the next day found one or two more. But although it was mentioned in pa.s.sing once or twice, the murder of the old man had been cla.s.sified and accepted. It was odd, he thought. An old man is gunned down in the street and within a couple of days this senseless act is both normal and inevitable. It was as if these newspaper articles were poultices placed on sudden inflammations of violence. In a day or two all the poison had been drawn out of them. They became random events of the year 1919, inevitable, without malice, part of history. The old man lying on the bridge with his watch in his hand was a part of history. And thus, the Major reflected-looking out of his window at the bustling traffic of Dame Street, at the gentlemen in bowler hats, at the fine ladies in their billowing dresses, at the flower and fruit sellers, at the ragged women with babies and barefoot children clinging to their skirts begging in the street below "For the Mercy of G.o.d"..."For the Holy Vargin!"...at the gleaming motor cars, at the friendly faces, at the jaunting-cars with their nodding horses and at all the other things which would not be recorded-a particle of the history of this year is formed. A raid on a barracks, the murder of a policeman on a lonely country road, an airship crossing the Atlantic, a speech by a man on a platform, or any of the other random acts, mostly violent, that one reads about every day: this was the history of the time. The rest was merely the "being alive" that every age has to do.

This thought must have displeased him, for he said to himself: "I'll leave tonight and go back to London. And then perhaps I'll go abroad and spend the winter in Italy." The boat train left Westland Row at ten past seven. He would get into Euston at half past five tomorrow morning. "I have plenty of time. I'll ring for someone to pack my bags."

But at this moment there was a knock on the door. It was the chambermaid in her black uniform and white ap.r.o.n and cap. She had a telegram for him. It was from Edward to say that Angela had died the night before and would he return to Kilnalough as soon as possible.

Gone to the angels. The Major thought about her on the train back to Kilnalough. He thought about the tea-party the day he had arrived in Kilnalough a few weeks earlier; indeed, it was his only memory of her. He had no other. And somehow he could not help smiling sadly when he remembered her fierce nostalgia in the tropical gloom of the Palm Court.

And now Angela had gone to join the ancient pre-Raphaelite poets and the steady-eyed explorers who had shed their earthly envelopes (as the saying goes). She had gone to join the dead rowing blues (they were most probably among those blurred chaps on Edward's War Memorial) who had quaffed pre-war champagne out of her slippers. She had gone to the place where all the famous people go, and the obscure ones too for that matter.

"I'm dying," she had said to him, "of boredom," and even that remembered statement seemed to lack pathos or tragedy. It was almost as if one might expect to find "of boredom" written on her death certificate. "Well," he thought, "I don't mean to laugh at her, poor girl. She must have been ill even then." Indeed, it made him feel sad to think of her now, sitting there in that pseudo-tropical clearing in Kilnalough and dying "of boredom," if not of something that reminded her more painfully of the harshness of reality, of the transience of youth, and of her own mortality.

The Major did not arrive at the Majestic until after dark and it would not have surprised him to find n.o.body there to greet him. However, as he climbed the stone steps and dragged open the ma.s.sive front door he saw that there was a glimmer of light in the foyer. The electric light appeared not to be functioning but an oil lamp was burning dimly on the reception desk and beside it, asleep on a wooden chair, was the old manservant, Murphy. He started violently as the Major touched his arm and gave a gasp of terror; it was true that there was something eerie about this vast shadowy cavern and the Major himself felt a shiver of apprehension as his eyes tried to probe beyond the circle of light into the darker shadows where the white figure of Venus flickered like a wraith. He bent an ear; Murphy was wheezing some information.

Edward had retired early on Dr Ryan's instructions, worn out. He would see the Major in the morning. The twins, Miss Faith and Miss Charity, had returned from their holidays earlier that same evening for their sister's funeral which would be held tomorrow at eleven. If the Major required anything to eat he would find sandwiches in the dining-room.

Murphy took the oil lamp and led the way to the dining-room without volunteering to carry the Major's suitcase. But the Major was by now an old hand at the Majestic, so he picked it up without a murmur and plunged down the corridor in the wake of the dancing lamp. Soon he was wearily masticating soda-bread sandwiches which contained some sort of fish; he supposed it to be salmon. There was no sound except for the creaking of the wind outside and an occasional flash of rain against the window-panes. Murphy had gone away with the oil lamp and the only illumination was provided by the two-branched silver candlesticks that flanked his plate of sandwiches.

A great melancholy stole over him. He sat there at the table in his mackintosh (which he had not bothered to remove) and thought of Angela and felt sorry for her, and he felt sorry for Edward too. And presently, thinking of the old man dead on the ca.n.a.l bridge, he felt sorry not only for the dead but for the mortal living too...it made so little difference. Having eaten, he drank a gla.s.s of beer and climbed the creaking, treacherous stairs to the room he had used before. It was exactly as he had left it. The sheets had not been removed (thank heaven!) and the bed had not been made. He undressed and crawled beneath a generous pile of damp blankets.

The sun shone brilliantly on the day of Angela's funeral. The Major woke very late and by the time he had gone downstairs to breakfast dressed in a dark suit and black tie for the sombre occasion Edward had already left for the church. So had the twins, apparently. There was no sign of them. Only Ripon was left, looking pale and wretched, unable to find anything to say. He looked relieved when the Major refused his offer of a lift to the church, saying that he would prefer to walk.

"Angela had leukaemia," Ripon told him in reply to his question. "We thought you knew."

"Well, no, actually, I didn't," replied the Major, sounding rather cross. How typical of the Spencers to leave him to find out for himself!

He entered the churchyard by a side gate of wrought iron which at some time in the distant past had been left open so long that it had rusted that way and was now immovable, embroidered by thick green threads of gra.s.s into the bank behind it. In earlier days it had borne an inscription in Gothic letters so ornate that one could hardly read them...The Lord is...My shepherd? Rust had entirely dislodged the rest of the scroll. "My defence," perhaps. Whatever it was it lay in dark flakes somewhere in the gra.s.s.

A little farther on he came to a pile of fresh, dark earth and it gave him a disagreeable shock when he realized that this was where Angela was to be interred. As he pa.s.sed he was unable to resist a glance down into the neat oblong trench along the sides of which the white knuckles of roots showed like nuts in a slice of fruit-cake. Down there, in the course of a year or two, these slender white fingers would grow out again and wrap themselves round the wooden box imprisoning this unfortunate English lady (poor Angela, he was sure that her thoughts had always been returning like little lost dogs to such places as Epsom and Mayfair, Oxford and Cowes) for ever in Irish soil. He moved on now into the deep blue shadow cast by the tower of the church, a structure as modest as the headstones in the churchyard and made of the same grey, granitic stone quarried on the coast (Edward had once told him) ten or so miles away. The Roman Catholic chapel, as it happened, was also made of this stone.

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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 ha.s.sock 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 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 m.u.f.fled 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Maire Noonan. I'm sure that little b.i.t.c.h Sarah will have told you."

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

"I suppose you know Maire'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 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?" 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sure 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 ma.s.s 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 BOXINGA 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 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 gla.s.s 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. 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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sing 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 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 a.s.sa.s.sinations. 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 compet.i.tion 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. 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 a.s.sa.s.sinations. 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 compet.i.tion 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.

One day the Major received a telegram. To his surprise it was signed SARAH. It said: DON'T READ LETTER RETURN UNOPENED. The Major had not yet received any letter and waited with impatience for it to arrive. Next morning he was holding it in one hand and tapping it against the fingertips of the other. After a brief debate with himself he opened it.

She had no reason for sending him a letter (she wrote) and he didn't have to read it if he didn't want to. But she was in bed again with "an unmentionable illness" and bored to tears, literally ("I sometimes burst into tears for no reason at all") and, besides, her face was so covered in spots that she looked "like a leopard" and she had become so ugly that little children fled wailing if they saw her at the window and n.o.body ever came to see her these days and she had no friends now that poor Angela had died and (that reminded her) why had he not come over to say h.e.l.lo to her on the day of Angela's funeral...after all, she (Sarah) didn't bite, but then she supposed that he was too high and mighty to be seen talking to the likes of her and he probably, anyway, couldn't read her writing because she was scribbling away in bed, her fingers "half frozen off" and surrounded by stone hot-water jars against which she kept cracking her "poor toes" and which were practically freezing anyway...and besides, besides, she was positively bored to distraction with everything and there was simply nothing to do in Kilnalough, nothing at all, and she would certainly run away if she could (which, of course, she couldn't, being a "poor, miserable cripple" into the bargain... and full of self-pity, he would surely be thinking)...

But enough of that, about herself there was nothing of interest to say. The Major must be wanting to hear what was happening in Kilnalough and at the Majestic and the answer to that was...ructions!!! Edward Spencer challenging Father O'Meara (practically) to a duel for improper a.s.sociation with Ripon. Old Mr Noonan threatening to horsewhip the young pup (Ripon, that was) if he didn't stop playing fast and loose with Maire (did the Major remember the fat pudding of a girl they had met one day in the street?) and show whether he was a gentleman or what he was, anyway, beG.o.d...And as to what that that might mean the Major's guess was as good as hers...only it wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that the above-mentioned fat pudding was pregnant with triplets by the young pup. And to make matters worse Fr O'Meara was threatening to sue Edward for something the twins had done to him, she didn't quite know might mean the Major's guess was as good as hers...only it wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that the above-mentioned fat pudding was pregnant with triplets by the young pup. And to make matters worse Fr O'Meara was threatening to sue Edward for something the twins had done to him, she didn't quite know what what but she'd try and find out and let him know. Anyway, there was surely worse to come. but she'd try and find out and let him know. Anyway, there was surely worse to come.

However, she was pretty certain that such provincial matters would hardly interest him now that he was back in the big city...Was it true that in London even the horses wore leather shoes? But she was only teasing him, of course. The English (that was to say, "the enemy") were so serious one could never risk making a joke in case they believed you.

Had the Major heard the very latest, G.o.d forgive her (in fact, G.o.d forgive everybody), that had been happening right under her nose all this while...which was that one of her father's clerks, a red-faced lad up from the country with a smathering of the "mattermathics" had dared, had had the temerity, had made so bold-faced as to get up his nerve to, in spite of her spots (which must show what strong stomachs country people had), actually fall in love with her fall in love with her! ! ! Without so much as a by-your-leave! He, the Major, would undoubtedly be as amazed as she was that even a country lad who only knew about cows (and himself smelled like a farmyard) could have his wits so deranged as to consider marrying a "total cripple" like herself.

Himself: "Will ye walk out with me, Miss Devlin?"

Me: "How can I, you peasant oaf, with no legs?" And now every time she went out of the house she would find her "rural swain" touching his forelock and blushing like a ripe tomato and the whole thing was positively sickening and disgusting. There surely must be something wrong with someone (apart altogether from the things which immediately greeted the eye and the nose) who would marry someone like her sooner than one of the millions of girls who could churn his b.u.t.ter and wash his clothes and thump his dough and have a brat a year like a pullet laying eggs from dawn to dusk without so much as batting an eyelid. And what did the Major think of such a thing anyway? Wasn't she right to treat the whole thing as nonsense? But the worst was yet to come.

One could hardly believe it, but the "rural swain" had had the temerity to approach her father with his "bovine proposal" and had even inquired if there might not be a little bit of a dowry now to sweeten the bargain, a couple of heifers and a few quid, perhaps, or a brace of pigs and a few auld hens and then maybe later on a wee share in the bank (which he seemed to think was something like a farm for growing money) and so on and so forth, with lots of blushes and his breeches hanging off of him like potato sacks on a scarecrow! And the very worst was yet to come!

Incredible though it might seem, her father, instead of sneering at the young bog-trotter's pretensions to his fair daughter's hand, boxing his ears and sending him back to scratching in his ledgers or whatever he did (stoking the boiler for all she knew), had said that, by Jove, in such circ.u.mstances one did well to treat all proposals with serious consideration and though, of course, it would never occur to "me or your mother" to influence her in any way, it nevertheless seemed unwise to send likely lads packing, up from the country or not (after all, they could be groomed and citified to cope with Kilnalough's undemanding standards), before one had given them a fair run for their money! The Major would hardly believe it, but there was even worse to come!

The "bovine suitor," greatly encouraged by her father's att.i.tude, had now taken to lurking beside the gate whenever she went outside, greeting her with familiar winks, and had even approached her near enough to suggest that she should play him "a bit of a tune" on her piano and even, no doubt considering the conquest effected, had placed a hand like a gelatine lobster on her "fair shrinking shoulder," murmuring that she should accord him "a hug." Naturally, he had received a tongue-lashing for his trouble. Yet he had stood there grinning and red-faced (the blush, she realized, was permanent), quite unabashed. What did the Major make of her predicament? Did he not agree that it would be better to accept the rigours of spinsterhood and penury ("your mother and I won't always be here to look after you, you know") rather than submit to such a grisly fate? Indeed, her only support in the matter had come from a totally unsuspected source, namely the incredibly ancient and insufferable Dr Ryan whom she had always thought of as her "arch-enemy." He had told her father flatly that he would as soon see her marry a gorilla in the Dublin Zoo as the above-mentioned peasant Lothario and that if he so much as heard mention of the matter again he would see to it that all his patients in Kilnalough transferred their business to some other bank. So for the moment there was an armistice. But for how long? The more he thought about it the more her father wanted to marry her off. So no wonder that she had been overtaken by her "unmentionable illness." Perhaps, like poor Angela, she would just wilt away and probably no one would care. The Major, she was certain, wouldn't care in the least.

And who knew? Perhaps her parents were right. Perhaps there was no real difference between one man and another. After all (she sometimes found herself thinking, sinful though such thoughts were), after all, are we so very different from animals? And animals made less fuss about such matters.