The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [176]
Sarah was sitting with her legs drawn up beneath her in a deep leather armchair. Around her shoulders she had swirled a vast khaki blanket which hung to the floor in an irregular cone. One naked arm clasped the blanket to her chin. The Major’s eye, stung by the nakedness of this arm, travelled away and was promptly stung again, more severely: this time by a door beside the desk that stood open to an adjoining room. He had never seen this door open before. Within he could glimpse an iron bed and a tangle of dirty sheets.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Hurt?” cried Sarah gaily. “If they had managed to hurt each other perhaps they wouldn’t have looked so ridiculous...Why is everyone here so ridiculous? Yes, you’re ridiculous too, goggling at me with your sheep’s eyes...Can you guess what happened? Did he cut Edward’s throat? At least that would have made some sense...but no, not even that! He kept shouting that his honour was besmirched...as if he had any honour to begin with! He said that Edward had bought me with thirty pieces of silver...Naturally Edward couldn’t find a word to say to all this. Oh, they make me sick, both of them. ‘Now look here, Mr Devlin, can’t we be sensible about this?’ Ah, and my father was drunk, of course, or else it would never have occurred to him to assault one of the gentry, a member of the quality, mind you, a Protestant gentleman...one of his own customers at the bank. My God! Can you imagine his daring? Oh yes, and Edward... don’t think that he was any better. He was worse...he was ready to grovel too...and I used to think he was a man with dignity, shows what a poor little fool I am. You should have seen them fighting, you’d have died laughing. They make me sick!”
Sarah’s face had turned white and against this pallor her eyes seemed black and very large. As if to give substance to her words, she leaned forward, hanging her head over the arm of the chair as if she were, in fact, about to be sick. The Major took a step forward to comfort her, but stopped again. Lying folded on the arm of the sofa his eyes encountered an oblong of grey silk that might have been a woman’s dress. He stood there, painfully absorbing every detail; when he turned his head away every tiniest thread was stitched into his memory. He was certain that Sarah was naked under her blanket. On her naked arm, near the shoulder, he noticed the blue mark of a bruise and in his mind’s eye he saw Bolton standing beside her chair at the ball, his finger and thumb whitening around her soft skin.
“Where are they now?”
Sarah lifted her white face and stared at him without comprehension. Eventually she said: “Edward took him home when they’d finished fighting. I wouldn’t go with them. What d’you think? They’re probably the best of friends by now. Even before he left he was beginning to apologize. ‘You’ll understand my position, Mr Spencer...’ and Edward was saying that he, my father, had every right, that he understood what it was to have daughters...Edward was terrified of him... I’ve never seen anyone look so shaken and guilty and wretched. It was disgusting!”
The Major stepped forward and knelt by the fire to pick the shoe out of the ashes; the leather sole was blackened and charred. He blew a blizzard of white ash off it and set it down indecisively in the hearth. A deluge of hot wax scalded his fingers, reminding him that he was still holding the candle. He threw it into the fire and picked the wax off his knuckles with a dull resentment, staring at his fingers. Sarah was weeping bitterly by now, but the Major continued to pick at his waxed knuckles. Then, when at last he had finished, he went to stand over Sarah’s chair and took hold of her naked arm and tried to kiss her wet face. As she resisted he began to struggle with her, wrenching at the blanket that covered her: “You dirty whore!” He was certain