The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [61]
“Dear Major,” she wrote, “it was wrong of you to read that letter when I told you not to. I was ill when I wrote it and had a fever, as I’m sure I said. You needn’t expect me to apologize, however, since I took the trouble of warning you not to read it. It’s your own fault if you came across something that didn’t please you. About Mr Mulcahy, I regret very much making fun of him as he’s a decent enough sort of person and I exaggerated a great deal. As for being rescued from the Irish swine, as you remark, I can assure you that there’s really no need for that as they and I agree very well (perhaps because I’m one of the same swine myself). Also, as regards London, I’m perfectly content where I am. Nevertheless, I must thank you for your offer, because, though unsuitable, I’m sure it was kindly meant.”
“Ah,” thought the Major, chastened, “she’s angry with me and no doubt thinks that I’m contemptuous of Kilnalough. Perhaps my letter was tactless.” And he hurriedly wrote to apologize, pleading with her to forgive his tactlessness. Would she not satisfy his curiosity anyway? He was devoured with curiosity to know how the affair between Máire and Ripon had come out? And what was this thing that the twins had done to Fr O’Meara? And how was Edward bearing up under the strain?
All she knew (Sarah wrote back) was that Ripon and Máire were living in Rathmines with “a little one” on the way. Had he run away in the middle of the night with his fiancée? Had he been thrown out of his father’s house without a penny? Nobody knew for sure, but several stories were circulating in Kilnalough. According to the one she believed (or liked to believe, anyway) Ripon had half run away and half been ejected. What had happened (so this story went) was that Edward had given him a sum of money, driven him to the railway station and put him on the train for Dublin with strict orders to stay there and get up to no mischief until he, Edward, had settled the affair in Kilnalough. This done, he had arranged to meet Mr Noonan at the Majestic to talk things over. Meanwhile Ripon had only allowed the train to carry him to the next station up the line. There, after a long argument, he had finally succeeded in extracting a refund from the station-master on the rest of his ticket to Dublin. Then he had returned with all speed to Kilnalough, climbed the Noonan’s garden wall causing poor Máire to faint (she thought he was a tinker), revived her, informed her she was liberated (she had been “confined to barracks” by her military-minded father), helped her to pack a suitcase, bribed a man he saw standing at the gate whom he supposed was one of Noonan’s servants (but who was merely a bystander) and finally fled with her to the station while her father was still at the Majestic. By all accounts (or rather, by this particular account) the Kilnalough station-master came close to having a heart attack when young Ripon, whom he had only just seen go off on the last train to Dublin, appeared in time for the next one and went off on that one too, accompanied by a heavily veiled lady whose ample proportions and pink ankles suggested that it might not be impossible that this was “a certain person,” he’d say no more; as he was handing this veiled lady up into the carriage he had caught “a whiff of something not unlike chloroform...but, mind you, I’m not saying it was nor it wasn’t though, begod, it was as like as the divil!” Well, that was a story the Major could believe if he liked, the English (or “the enemy,” as she preferred to think of them) being so literal, the Major in particular being as literal as a lump of dough, she had no doubt that he’d believe it all.
As for the attack of the twins on Fr O’Meara, here was another story that the Major could try out on his digestion. The brave and worthy Fr O’Meara had taken it into his head one day to pay a visit on Ripon whom he had been grooming spiritually (the Major being a “beastly Prod” would fail to see the need for this, she was sure) for the marriage he contemplated with the miller’s daughter.