The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [77]
Murphy had appeared, carrying a hoe. Edward directed him to scrape 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 God’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 anticipation. 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 attitudes 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. Passing the open door one afternoon, the Major paused to listen.
“How do you say in French, Mr Evans, ‘The buttons 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