The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [110]
“Mr Evans, I wonder, would you mind?” The tutor looked up from the cards he was studying. He hesitated for a moment, his face expressionless, then he got to his feet without a word, picked the cat up by its dark-ringed orange tail and left the room.
“The strength of some of those fellas is positively fr-frightful...” Mr Norton said to the Major, who was not sure whether he was referring to the tutor or to the cat.
When Evans returned Edward said that, rather than end on such an unfortunate note, everyone should sit down and play another hand or two, if they felt like it, and try to forget this unpleasant little episode. And presently, though in a rather subdued fashion, the players began to chatter about other things. The odour of fear and violence gradually dissipated.
When he had thrown a few more pieces of turf and wood on to the fire Edward sat down and said cheerfully: “Now whose turn was it to play and what were we talking about?”
“Your turn. Mrs Rice had just asked you about your visit to Ripon when you were in Dublin yesterday.”
“Ah yes,” said Edward and once more a strained expression appeared on his face. But before he could say a word Sarah exclaimed: “Oh, we had a lovely time, Mrs Rice, and Ripon is getting along wonderfully. Did you know that he married a friend of mine, Máire Noonan, from Kilnalough? Such a nice girl...” and she went on to talk about Máire, though Mrs Rice, who believed she was missing one of her cards (how many did everyone else have?) was not really listening. As for the Major, he lowered his jealous eyes to the fan of cards in his hand and said no more. He thought: “That evening with me in London must have meant nothing to her after all.”
Certain of the guests, including Dr Ryan, his grandson and Sarah, had been invited to stay for supper. Padraig had begun the afternoon affecting a cautious and supercilious manner. He had relaxed, however, on hearing that the twins had been locked up and soon became expansive, even voluble. Like the Major he appeared to be partial to older ladies. The Major, who was looking for the doctor (his cold was at its zenith and he was afraid he had pneumonia), overheard the lad describing to Miss Bagley in minute detail the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. Miss Bagley murmured “Dear me!” at intervals, genuinely horrified.
The doctor had vanished, as he had a habit of doing when the old ladies might want to discuss their ailments with him. But he was so old and infirm that the Major was confident that he would be able to track him down without much difficulty—and so it proved. He came upon him sitting in the Palm Court, little frequented these days for a number of reasons: one, of course, was the usual difficulty of the foliage having swallowed up most of the chairs and tables; another was the lack of light, since there were no gas mantles and the “Do More” generator had been idle for many a month—there were oil lamps, of course, but they gave the place such an eerie and frightening atmosphere (all those weird shapes and shadows lurking beyond the circle of light) that it was almost better to do without. Yet another, and even more conclusive, reason was the fact that Miss Porteous had somehow convinced herself that she had been bitten in there by a poisonous spider. The Major had declared this to be nonsense, but curiously enough Miss Porteous did have an enormous blue swelling on the wrist over which the offending spider was supposed to have walked. At any rate, after dark none of the ladies would have considered going in there for a moment—which was why the Major was not in the least surprised to see the doctor there, sitting in a cane chair beside the glass door into the lounge. This door afforded enough light for the Major to see that the doctor was awake. He explained that he had a cold, a very bad cold which he was afraid—he added