The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [106]
Sarah called from below that he should go down, they were ready to leave, she didn’t want to climb the “dratted stairs” again. Still clutching his roses and chocolates, the Major made his way down. He was following Sarah into the street when Mr Devlin materialized at his elbow and whispered: “You mustn’t mind her. She gets excited. She’s very high-strung, you know, Major, but she means no harm...Indeed, it clears the air...Her music makes her temperamental, you see, it’s always the way...”
The Major nodded curtly but showed no inclination to pause and discuss the matter. Mr Devlin dropped back into the shadows of the corridor from which he had appeared, murmuring that the Major should call more often, that he was always welcome under their...Under their what? The Major did not wait to hear. “Roof,” he supposed.
“What on earth are you carrying, Brendan? Are you going to visit someone sick in bed?”
“They’re for you.”
“For me?” Sarah exclaimed, laughing. “How ridiculous you are! What on earth shall I do with such things? But, very well...I’ll accept them. It’s really very kind of you. In fact, you are a terribly kind person, I can see that plainly. With your flowers and chocolates you remind me of Mulcahy.”
“Oh? The rural swain?” asked the Major, offended.
“Now I’ve hurt your feelings, Brendan. It’s just like the old days.”
As they motored through the tranquil streets of Kilnalough the Major, eyes blurred, nose red and mouth gaping like a fish, peered gloomily at the peaceful shops and houses, some of which already had turf-smoke rising from their chimneys, and wondered whether one day there would be trouble in these streets too.
On the outskirts of Kilnalough a shabby old man hurled a stone at them as they went sailing by—but feebly. It missed by a considerable distance. The Major pretended not to notice.
The twins had not been liberated. There was no sign of them in the writing-room, where a fire was blazing in the hearth and where card-tables covered in green baize had been set up, each with a neat stack of playing-cards, a scoring pad and a sharpened pencil.
“I say, you don’t really feel like playing whist, do you?” asked the Major, his eyes closed to the merest slits in an attempt to avoid surrendering to another volley of sneezes. He hoped that she felt as reluctant as he did.
“But of course! That’s what I came for. What a frightful smell of cats there is in this room.”
The Major could smell nothing because of his cold, but he had already noticed that one or two cats, presumably ejected by the servants who had put up the card-tables, were pressing discontented faces against the closed windows.
“Something will have to be done about the cats. Miss Staveley found a litter of kittens in her knitting-basket the other day. And at night they have the most fearful battles up and down the corridors. One can hardly get any sleep.”
Hitherto whist had been informal, merely a way of crossing some of the great expanses of time that stretched like deserts over the afternoon and evening at the Majestic, deserts through which the lonely caravan of old ladies (together with Mr Norton and, on occasions, the Major or Edward) was obliged to make its way. But this time everything was different. Not only had real card-tables been set up and the cats expelled but the ladies, forewarned that this was to be a social occasion, had dressed up in their most splendid clothes and most luxuriantly feathered hats. A glorious riot of coloured plumage waved beside extravagant creations inspired by the garden and executed in silk, satin, leghorn and organdie. And of all the magnificent hats that greeted the Major’s weeping eyes none was finer, as was only to be expected, than the golden pheasant, perfect in every detail, which was riding Miss Staveley’s thin white curls.
“We must cheer ourselves up some way or another,” Edward told him. “Keep up morale and so forth.”
The Major went up to his room to get some dry handkerchiefs and lingered there morosely for a while. When he came downstairs again he found that Mrs Rice, Miss Porteous and