The Empire Trilogy Part 7

1. Whereas the spies and traitors known as the Royal Irish Constabulary are holding this country for the enemy, and whereas said spies and bloodhounds are conspiring with the enemy to bomb and bayonet and otherwise outrage a peaceful, law-abiding and liberty-loving people;2. Wherefore we do hereby proclaim and suppress said spies and traitors, and do hereby solemnly warn prospective recruits that they join the R.I.C. at their own peril. All nations are agreed as to the fate of traitors. It has the sanction of G.o.d and man.By order of the G.O.C.

Irish Republican Army The Major had read of these posters in the newspapers but this was the first he had seen with his own eyes.

"The ruffians slip in during the night when they think they're safe. Murphy should be here in a minute; I told him to bring along something to sc.r.a.pe it off with."

"But what I don't see," said the Major with a smile, "is why they should think that 'said spies and bloodhounds' are anxious to conspire in your drive. After all, they could surely have found a more visible spot."

"We have a few young chaps staying at the hotel at the moment," Edward told him. "Ex-army officers brought over from England to give a hand to the R.I.C. They're supposed to be the first of a new auxiliary force they've started recruiting. You won't have seen them about yet, I expect, because I've quartered them in the Prince Consort wing by themselves. They didn't get on with the old ladies. The Prince Consort wing is over the stables, can't see it from here, of course. They have their own mess there and so forth. We had them in the main building at first but they were rather boisterous, just schoolboys, really (though they've done their bit, mind you, they've been in the trenches)...Trouble was they kept teasing the old girls; one of them kept on whipping out a bayonet and pretending to cut their throats...But they're not a bad lot of chaps. Expect you'll run into them round about. They use the tennis courts a bit. Ah, there's Murphy."

Murphy had appeared, carrying a hoe. Edward directed him to sc.r.a.pe off the notice and the old manservant advanced on the lodge feebly brandishing his implement. But the notice had been stuck well up on the wall and was out of his reach.

"We need something to stand on," the Major said.

"Right you are," said Edward. "Come here, Murphy. Major, you hand me the hoe and I'll climb on Murphy's shoulders." He gave the hoe to the Major. "Come on, man, we haven't got all day," he added to the decrepit manservant, who was shuffling forward with every sign of reluctance. The Major looked dubiously at Murphy's frail shoulders.

"Maybe we'd better get a ladder from somewhere."

"Nonsense. Now hold still, Murphy. Hang on to the trunk of this tree while I'm getting up. For G.o.d's sake, man, we're never going to get anywhere if you're going to wilt like that every time I touch you."

But time and time again, just as Edward seemed on the point of throwing his glistening shoe and beautifully trousered leg over the old servant's thin shoulders, he would begin to wilt in antic.i.p.ation. Edward stormed at him for having no backbone and ordered him not to be so faint-hearted-all to no avail. In the end they had to leave the notice where it was. Edward stalked angrily up the drive. Murphy, relief written all over his cadaverous features, vanished into the trees. And the Major was left to his own devices.

He spent the afternoon in the company of the twins. There was a row going on between them and Edward; he did not know what it was all about but suspected it had something to do with their being sent home from school. In any event, Edward was taking a firm line with them (or so he told the Major). Any disobedience or lack of respect should be instantly reported to him and they would be dealt with. Part of their punishment, it seemed, was to spend the afternoon with the Major (who was offended by the idea); they were to go with him in the Daimler and show him the whereabouts of a remarkable trout stream. These days the Major was only faintly interested in fishing, but he had nothing better to do. Though Faith and Charity had a chastened air they looked remarkably pretty in their navy-blue dresses with white lace collars encircling their slender necks. The Major felt sorry for them.

"Which is which, and how can I tell?"

"I'm Charity and she's Faith," one of them said. "Faith is bigger there," she added, pointing at Faith's chest. Both girls smiled wanly.

Throughout the afternoon, as they motored through the low rolling hills, the twins sat on the back seat in att.i.tudes of meek dejection, slim fingers lifted to entwine the braided velvet straps, each the mirror-image of the other. "What charming girls! Edward is being much too hard on them."

He modified this opinion a day or two later, however. As an additional punishment a daily lesson with Evans, the tutor, had been ordained by Edward to take place in the writing-room. Pa.s.sing the open door one afternoon, the Major paused to listen.

"How do you say in French, Mr Evans, 'The b.u.t.tons are falling off my jacket and I need a clean collar'?" one of the twins was asking innocently.

"How do you say, 'I've got boils on my neck because I never wash it'?"

"How do you say, 'I have ideas beyond my station'?"

"What does 'amavi puellam' mean?"

"How do you say in Latin, Mr Evans, 'My pasty white face is blushing all over'?"

"Sharpen my pencil, Evans, 'fraid I've just broken it again."

"Any more of this and I'll report you to your father."

"Any more of what? We're only asking questions."

"Aren't we even allowed to ask questions?"

The Major moved on. He had heard enough.

Later that same afternoon, while taking a stroll with old Miss Johnston in the Chinese Garden ("If you ask me it's an Irish Chinese Garden," Miss Johnston said with a sniff, looking round at the thick beds of tangled weeds and seeded flowers), their path crossed that of a young man in khaki tunic, breeches and puttees, wearing on his head a tam o'shanter with the crowned-harp badge of the R.I.C. The Major's eyes were drawn to the bandolier he wore across his chest and the black leather belt holding a bayonet scabbard; on his right thigh rested an open revolver holster. It was shocking, somehow, to meet this man in the peaceful wilderness of the garden, a sharp and unpleasant reminder of the incidents the Major had read about in the newspapers but could never quite visualize, any more than he could now visualize the shooting of the old man in b.a.l.l.sbridge that he had witnessed. As they pa.s.sed, the young man grinned sardonically and, winking at the Major, drew a finger across his throat from ear to ear.

"Gutter-snipe!" hissed Miss Johnston indignantly. "To think the R.I.C. is taking on young men like that!"

And it took all the Major's considerate inquiries about her nephews, her nieces and the state of her health ("Chilblains even in midsummer in this hotel, Major. I've never known such draughts...") to smooth her ruffled plumage.

And yet they were all ex-officers, these men, so Edward a.s.sured him later. One had to remember, though, that to be an officer in 1920 was not the same thing as being an officer in 1914. A lot of the older sort (their very qualities of bravery, steadfast obedience to the call of duty, chivalry and so forth acting as so many banana skins on the road to survival) had disappeared in the holocaust and had had to be replaced. It was also true that these new men, and the great number who would soon be following them to a meagre six weeks of police training at the Curragh, were among the least favourably placed of the countless demobilized officers who now found themselves having to earn a living once more. All the same, though one made allowances (and Edward was always ready to make allowances for men who had served in the trenches), there were were limits. The old kind, the officer who was also a gentleman, would never have gone about frightening old ladies. So thought Edward. What did the Major think? limits. The old kind, the officer who was also a gentleman, would never have gone about frightening old ladies. So thought Edward. What did the Major think?

The Major agreed, but thought to himself that these "men from the trenches" who were being paid a pound a day to keep a few wild Irishmen in order might well have trouble taking anything very seriously-whether the Irish, the old ladies, or their own selves.

At the same time he was disturbed by their presence. These men (individually they were charming, Edward told him) were unpredictable and still estranged from the accepted standards of life in peacetime-not that one could call Ireland very peaceful these days. As he was pa.s.sing the Prince Consort wing a day or two later a window exploded in a sparkling burst of splinters, a laughing head appeared and a hand was held out to see if it was raining. Occasionally too one heard pistol shots and laughter in the long summer evenings; Edward had laid out a pistol-range in the clearing behind the lodge where the I.R.A. notice had been posted. In no time at all the notice had melted away under a hail of bullets and hung in unrecognizable shreds. One day the Major picked up a dead rabbit on the edge of the lawn. Its body was riddled with bullets.

This rabbit, as it happened, had been a favourite of the Major's. Old and fat, it had been partly tamed by the twins when they were small children. They had lost interest, of course, as they grew older, and no longer remembered to feed it. The rabbit, however, had not forgotten the halcyon days of carrots and dandelion leaves. Thinner and thinner as time went by, it had nevertheless continued to haunt the fringes of the wood like a forsaken lover. Poor rabbit! Moved and angry (but the "men from the trenches" were not to know that this was not a wild rabbit), the Major went to break the news to the twins, who were down by the tennis courts trying to persuade Sean Murphy to teach them how to drive the Standard (though Edward had forbidden this until they were older). The twins were not as upset as the Major expected them to be.

"Can we eat him?" they wanted to know.

"He's already buried."

"We could dig him up," Faith suggested. "Aren't rabbits' feet supposed to be lucky?"

But the Major said he had forgotten where the grave was.

"Were the bullet-holes bad?"

"How d'you mean? They were bad for the rabbit."

"No, I was just thinking we could have made a fur hat," said Charity, "if there weren't too many holes in him."

"I say, Brendan, you aren't any good at arithmetic, are you? Daddy has set that dreadful tutor person on us and now he's threatening to look at our homework when it's been corrected."

"Try Mr Norton. He's supposed to be good at that sort of thing."

Mr Norton was a man in his seventies, a recent arrival at the Majestic; he had the reputation, fostered by himself, of having been a mathematical genius, drained in his youth, however, of energy and fortune by a weakness for beautiful women.

"We asked him..."

"But he always wants us to sit on his knee as if we were children."

"And his breath smells horrid."

Now that the Imperial Bar had been rendered uninhabitable by the colony of cats the Major sometimes took one of Edward's motor cars into Kilnalough in the evening for a drink at the Golf Club. There one evening he met Boy O'Neill, the solicitor, who greeted him like an old friend, although it was almost a year since the Peace Day parade when they had last met. O'Neill's appearance had changed dramatically and the Major could now scarcely recognize the timid, bony invalid he had first met at Angela's tea-party. Dressed in a baggy tweed jacket with bulging pockets, O'Neill appeared more swollen and aggressive than ever. There was a subdued irritation about the man which made one ill at ease when talking to him; one had the feeling that O'Neill was capable at any moment of abandoning reason altogether and finishing the argument with an uppercut. The Major sat watching the wads of jaw-muscle thickening as he talked: he had just finished eighteen holes, he declared, and had never felt better in his life. A hot shower, a drink, and now he was off home for a good meal. He unslung the clinking golf-bag from his shoulder and heaved it into an armchair, showing no impatience to depart. Eyeing the golf-bag, the Major noticed nestling between a mashie niblick, a jigger and the bulging wooden head of a driver what he at first thought was a club without a head-but no, it was the barrel of a rifle.

"No half measures, eh?"

"I can see you haven't been reading the papers, Major. Couple of army chaps were shot down on a links in Tipperary the other day...unarmed men. Didn't have a chance out there with no shelter, n.o.body pa.s.sing by. The Shinners are brave enough when the other fella doesn't have a gun. They'll run like rabbits if they know you're armed."

The Major only glanced at the newspaper these days, tired of trying to comprehend a situation which defied comprehension, a war without battles or trenches. Why should one bother with the details: the raids for arms, the shootings of policemen, the intimidations? What could one learn from the details of chaos? Every now and then, however, he would become aware with a feeling of shock that, for all its lack of pattern, the situation was different, and always a little worse.

Satisfied with the Major's look of dismay, O'Neill was now saying confidently that there was no need to worry. "All this will be cleared up now within five or six weeks, you can take it from me."

"How d'you know?" asked the Major hopefully, thinking that perhaps O'Neill had heard something. "Two reasons," declared O'Neill. "One, reinforcements are coming from England with this new recruiting campaign. Two, because of the nature of the Irish people. The Irish are a quick-tempered lot but they don't hold a grudge for long. They're good at heart, you see. Besides, they're too inefficient to get anywhere by themselves...I speak, mind you, of the Southerners; Ulstermen are a different kettle of fish. Besides, all Ireland's best leaders have been Englishmen; look at Parnell."

"Yes, yes, to be sure," agreed the Major dubiously. "It must end soon. That's what we used to say in the trenches," he added with a faint smile.

"Of course, of course," O'Neill said, failing to perceive the Major's irony. "You can take my word for it. I've just been having a drink with the army lads we have here now and I don't think they'll stand for much nonsense from Paddy Pig."

"You mean the men staying at the Majestic? I didn't think they had much time for us locals."

"They're splendid chaps, you can take it from me," replied O'Neill, who was now taking off his bulging jacket and showed less sign of leaving than ever. "It's just that they don't really know who they can trust over here and, frankly, I don't blame them for that. Come in with me now to the bar and I'll introduce you."

"Really, thanks all the same..." protested the Major, but O'Neill was already on his feet and beckoning imperiously with a forearm as thick as a leg of lamb. The Major followed him reluctantly. O'Neill's studded shoes clicked on the tiles of the corridor and bit into the worn wood of the locker room where a fat naked gentleman was vigorously towelling his quivering bottom. They pa.s.sed through into the Members' Bar.

"Just a minute," the Major said. "There's someone I must say h.e.l.lo to."

Mr Devlin, dapper and smiling, was hastening towards him. He was delighted to see the Major back amongst them once more and must express his thanks for the kindness he had shown to his daughter Sarah on her way to France and how was the Major's dear auntie who had also been so kind...("Ah, deceased is she? Indeed now, I'm sorry to hear it.") And was the Major himself in better health than he had been? It must have been a great worry and a terrible grief for him to be losing his auntie like that...And as for Sarah she would be back one of these days and he knew that she would look forward to seeing the Major as much as he himself did and besides they would probably be meeting here at the links from now on because he had "a little job to do"...He paused expectantly.

"Oh?"

Yes, he'd be spending some considerable time here in the evenings because he had been elected treasurer, there was a notice on the notice-board, the Major probably hadn't had a chance to see it yet. "And it's all thanks to the influence of a certain person who has been very good to me and my family, very good...I'll say no more...it's a great honour."

The "men from the trenches," four of them, were sitting together at the curve of the bar by a window looking out over the eighteenth green and the gently ascending slope of fairway that led up to it. None of the members, apart from O'Neill, were sitting near them, and for a good reason. They had caused some dismay, the Major had heard, by installing themselves here without invitation; after all, there was a lounge available for ladies and non-members (providing that they were respectable); the secretary had affably pointed this out on the occasion of their first visit. They had listened politely enough; there had not been a scene. But though there had not been a scene the trouble was that they had not moved either. The secretary's smile had to some extent congealed on his lips but, as he explained to a special meeting of the committee, these fellows were, after all, over here risking their lives to maintain law and order in Ireland (not to mention the fact that they also happened to be armed to the teeth), so one did not want to deal too harshly with them, throw them out on their ears and so forth. The committee had pondered the problem and come up with a solution brilliant in its simplicity. The "men from the trenches" should be invited to become members. The secretary had been dispatched there and then, on the spot, to deliver this generous invitation...But he had returned almost immediately with the news that they had declined. Once more they had listened politely while he talked about members' fees, rules, rights and obligations and then said, "No thanks." It was preposterous, everyone agreed that it was. All the same, the objection to dealing harshly with them, the one about risking their lives to maintain law and order (as well as the other one), remained and one could not simply ignore it. In the end, after much discussion, a notice had been posted on the bulletin board announcing that all senior senior personnel of the R.I.C. had been declared honorary members for the duration of the emergency (one couldn't, of course, open the doors to a horde of other ranks, splendid fellows though some of them no doubt were). The Major, who thought the secretary a pompous a.s.s, had enjoyed this affair. But now that he saw the men sitting there, cold and calm, he had to admit that he would not like to have been the person with the job of ordering them to leave. personnel of the R.I.C. had been declared honorary members for the duration of the emergency (one couldn't, of course, open the doors to a horde of other ranks, splendid fellows though some of them no doubt were). The Major, who thought the secretary a pompous a.s.s, had enjoyed this affair. But now that he saw the men sitting there, cold and calm, he had to admit that he would not like to have been the person with the job of ordering them to leave.

"Back again like a bad penny," O'Neill was saying with chilling heartiness. "Want you to meet an old pal, Major Archer. Now I wonder if I can get this straight...Captain Bolton, Lieutenants...let me see, Pike, Berry, and Foster-Smith. How's that for a memory, eh?"

"Sergeants now, old boy," said Foster-Smith, whose prominent teeth and thinning hair gave him a foolish appearance; he was very slight, his breeches hung in folds from thighs that were no thicker than wine-bottles.

It was Pike whose head the Major had seen appearing through the broken window at the Majestic; he looked a jolly fellow, but the eyes above his plump blue cheeks showed a disturbing intelligence and his frequent laughter seemed perfunctory. Berry was younger than the others; his sandy hair was cut so short that it stood up like the bristles of a hairbrush.

"Bit of a comedown," he was saying. "Not so much hobn.o.bbing with officers now that we've joined the unwashed O.R." He glanced slyly at the Major. Everyone laughed except Captain Bolton, who merely smiled faintly. O'Neill, red with mirth, laughed louder than anyone.

Captain Bolton's eyes moved from one or other of the lieutenants to the Major in a detached, incurious way. There was something about his powerful jaw that was familiar to the Major; it was a moment before he realized what it was. These were the strong regular features (a face without any particular ident.i.ty) which he had observed that sculptors frequently chose for war memorials. He could easily imagine Bolton frozen in bronze into some heroic posture. Put a helmet on his head, a bronze flag in his hand, drape a few dying bronze comrades around his knees...But Captain Bolton was very much alive and proved it by saying to the barman in a mild tone: "Another round quick sharp, Paddy, you dirty Shinner, and put it on our account..."

"And send it to the King," added Pike. "If he won't pay send it to the Lord of Wipers."

O'Neill explained the reason for introducing the Major to them: namely, the fact that they were neighbours. The Major too lived under Edward Spencer's roof at the Majestic.

"Spencer has two lovely daughters," Foster-Smith said, showing no interest in O'Neill's information.

"I've got a lovely daughter too," offered O'Neill winking broadly. "Want to see her picture?" And after a moment's fumbling he produced a tattered photograph of Viola. While "the men from the trenches" were studying it O'Neill winked again, this time at the Major. The Major turned away. As he was leaving Bolton called after him: "Tell the old grannies that the next one we catch we'll cut her up in pieces and put her in a sack."

Laughter echoed after him as he made his way through the empty changing-room towards the lounge. Before he reached it O'Neill, who had hurried after him, took him by the arm and asked eagerly: "What d'you think of them? They'll give the Shinners something to think about, won't they?"

"I'm sure they will," the Major said coldly. "But the cure may be as bad as the disease."

When O'Neill had departed the Major wearily climbed the stairs to the tea-room on the first floor. It was empty at this hour, but there was a veranda with a splendid view over the links and beyond to the cornfields that lined the road to Valebridge. The sun was already low in the sky and black shadows crept far out into the flowing gra.s.s. Down below, by the club-house steps, four late arrivals were preparing to set out for the first tee, the breeze ballooning their plus-fours as they waited. There would still be time this evening for nine holes, or eighteen if one was not too particular about the fading light.

As they moved away from the club-house a great number of ragged men and boys materialized around them raising a piercing, pitiful clamour. Some of these tattered figures were so old and bent that they could scarcely hobble forward to press their claims, others mere boys who were scarcely bigger than the golf-bags they were hoping to carry. The golfers looked them over and made their selection. Those who had been rejected retired disconsolately to the shadows where they had been lurking. There was little hope now that another party would set out that evening.

The Major sighed, stretched, yawned and presently went home, disturbed that old men and children should have to hang around the club-house until late at night in the hope of earning a sixpence. He thought: "Really, something should be done about it." But what could one do?

STATE OF IRELAND.

A Conspiracy Against EnglandOn the motion for the adjournment of the House of Commons yesterday, Sir Edward Carson said that he could not help thinking that the English and Scottish people-he hoped he was wrong-had begun not to care a spark what happened in Ireland. He imagined that a few years ago they could not have seen policemen serving their King shot down like dogs from day to day and soldiers who had fought their battles returning home to be treated like criminals because they had performed their heroic duties with very little being done for their protection. It was difficult to understand the paralysis that had come over the people of England in relation to these crimes. There was ample evidence that what was going on in Ireland was connected with what was going on in Egypt and India. It was all part of a scheme, openly stated, to reduce Great Britain to the single territory she occupied here, and to take from her all the keys of a great Empire. They would find, if they looked into it, that the same American-Irish who were working this matter in Ireland, and who visited Ireland last year, had an Irish Office, an Egyptian Office, and an Indian Office in New York. It was well known. It had been stated in the American papers that there was this great conspiracy going on-of which Sinn Fein formed only a part-not out of love for Ireland but out of hatred for Great Britain, fanned by Germans everywhere... He believed that the whole of this murder campaign, or a great part of it, was directed from America, and he believed the funds largely came from there.

GIRL'S HAIR CUT OFF A New Way to Free IrelandThe outrage near Tuam when the hair was cut off Bridget Keegan by masked men who entered her father's house in the early hours of the morning was strongly condemned by magistrates.Mr Golding, C.S., who appeared for the Crown said it was a blackguardly act. Seven men entered the girl's house about a quarter to one in the morning. One of them had a revolver and the others had what looked like revolvers. They took the girl, who had fainted, in her nightdress out to the yard, and cut her hair off with a shears, telling her sister, whom they threatened with the same fate, that that was what she got for going with Tommies. While the man with the shears was cutting off the hair he sang: "We are all out for Ireland free."All I can say is, said Mr Golding, G.o.d help Ireland if these are the acts of Irishmen, and G.o.d help Ireland if these are the men to free her.

LAND AGITATION MAINTAINED.

Roman Catholic Bishop's AppealThe Most Rev. Dr O'Dea, Roman Catholic Bishop of Galway, preaching at Killanin, where he administered Confirmation, entreated the people to be calm and united, and above all to do everything in accordance with the rules of justice laid down by the Church, and the precepts of honesty which the Commandments require. With regard to shootings and outrages he would say little. Shootings were always dangerous, and even if shots were fired without any attempts to kill or wound, were they not threats? Did not the shots fired in the air threaten, and was not a threat sinful?With regard to the taking over of land, continued his lordship, all I shall say is this: Let not the love of land, or riches, or anything else in this world, make us break G.o.d's law, for land stained with G.o.d's blood is unlawfully got, and is branded with G.o.d's curse.

A day or two after the Major's visit to the Golf Club Edward a.s.sembled his staff and what remained of his family to make an important announcement. The Major was also present, as were a number of the old ladies. Indeed, certain of the old ladies (particularly the Misses Bagley, Archer and Porteous) had lived at the Majestic for so long and in such penurious circ.u.mstances that somehow, since Edward no longer felt able to bring up the subject of payment of bills with them, they had metamorphosed themselves into members of the family. This situation was unsatisfactory for Edward who himself was no longer as wealthy as he had been. But one cannot turn a gentlewoman out into the streets to beg for her living. Besides, he found any discussion of money distasteful. As for baldly asking a lady to pay her bill, he would as soon have committed sodomy. His only resource, as the Major saw straight away, was to make their life so unpleasant that they might want to leave of their own accord. But naturally he was too much of a gentleman to do this deliberately, even though his expenses never seemed to stop mounting. In these circ.u.mstances it was probably a good thing that even at the best of times the discomfort of living at the Majestic was close to intolerable.

Edward's gaze wandered absently around the room while he waited for everyone to a.s.semble. Presently he stifled a yawn; he did not in the least look like someone about to make an important announcement. When at last a hush fell on the room he cleared his throat. He just wanted to say, he said, that he was on the point of-he paused a moment to let his words sink in-on the point of beginning an economy drive.

An "economy drive"? The old ladies flashed inquiring glances at each other, as if to say that they they had been under the impression that this economy drive had already begun, indeed that it had already been going on for rather a long time. Some of the servants too betrayed signs of alarm: was this the end of their employment? So many people were out of work these days that it seemed more than likely that one day their turn would come. The cook, who had a houseful of drunken relations to support in one of the Dublin slums, gasped inaudibly; the ma.s.sive facade of her bosom began to rise and fall rapidly. Evans turned pale and the boils on his neck glowed like cherries above the worn fringe of his stiff collar. Only one or two of the youngest maids who had barely arrived "from the country" blushed shyly and smiled their acceptance, as they would have even if Edward had decreed that they were to be whipped. As for Murphy, hitherto frozen into a cast-iron lethargy, his eyes were now racing to and fro across the carpet like terrified mice. had been under the impression that this economy drive had already begun, indeed that it had already been going on for rather a long time. Some of the servants too betrayed signs of alarm: was this the end of their employment? So many people were out of work these days that it seemed more than likely that one day their turn would come. The cook, who had a houseful of drunken relations to support in one of the Dublin slums, gasped inaudibly; the ma.s.sive facade of her bosom began to rise and fall rapidly. Evans turned pale and the boils on his neck glowed like cherries above the worn fringe of his stiff collar. Only one or two of the youngest maids who had barely arrived "from the country" blushed shyly and smiled their acceptance, as they would have even if Edward had decreed that they were to be whipped. As for Murphy, hitherto frozen into a cast-iron lethargy, his eyes were now racing to and fro across the carpet like terrified mice.

Edward cleared his throat. They expected him to continue, to amplify and explain...but no, he said nothing. The heavy ticking of the grandfather clock became audible. At length he sighed and asked: were there any questions?

Well, no, there were not. The air of dissatisfaction in the room deepened, however, and Miss Bagley looked quite cross. One really did not know where to begin with one's ques-tions when such an outlandish idea as an "economy drive" was proposed. In the old days...Silence had fallen again. It was interrupted by old Mrs Rappaport, who was sitting straight-backed as ever in a rocking-chair by the empty fire-place, a lace cap pinned on her thin grey hair. She began to rock herself peevishly back and forth, faster and faster, until at last she cried: "It's scandalous!" and everyone brightened a little.

But with Granny Rappaport one could never be quite sure whether she had altogether pinned down the subject under discussion or was talking about something totally different. Edward chose to ignore her and said that, all right then, that was all he had wanted to say and, by the way, thanked them for their co-operation. So they were dismissed...and still did not know at whose hard-won comforts the thin rats of economy were about to begin gnawing.

Edward, of course, was the sort of person for whom words and deeds are the same. Perhaps, the Major reflected, he would consider it sufficient to announce the economy drive without actually putting it into practice. That afternoon, however, while Edward and the Major were taking an after-lunch stroll on the terrace outside the ballroom, the twins were noticed fishing in the swimming-pool with an old tennis racket. They were brusquely summoned.

"Stand here and let's see how tall you are. Oh, stand up straight, girl! D'you need clothes?"

"Yes, Daddy. Ours are all in flitters, mine especially."

"Mine are worse."

"Mine are ten times, twenty times, a hundred times-" Charity held up the darned elbow of her cardigan-"a million million times worse."

"How long have you had the clothes you've got?"

"Absolutely ages. ages."

"A billion years."

"All right then, follow me. You come too, Major, and see fair play."