The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [85]
“Daddy, how could you?” cried Charity. “You surely don’t mean us to wear Angela’s things!” Edward said nothing, but his face darkened as he turned away and looked round the room. His eye came to rest on a chest of dark polished oak which, to the Major’s excited imagination, looked remarkably like a coffin. In fact it was an old dower chest which had probably belonged to the Spencers for generations. Edward had dug up the old metal clasp and lifted the lid; inside it was lined with another kind of wood, lighter and fragrant, cedar-wood perhaps. Another lid was lifted. In a moment Edward was scooping piles of neatly folded clothing on to the carpet.
“We can’t, Daddy, it’s too creepy,” insisted Faith, wiping the strings of the tennis racket on the bedclothes to clean off the minced remains of the moth.
“Not a corpse’s clothes,” pleaded Charity. “It’s awful. Just the thought of it makes me feel funny.”
“We must save money, my dear. Now be a good girl and take your dress off so we can try them on. If they don’t fit we’ll have to get the cook to work with her needle and thread—they tell me she’s very handy at that sort of thing. Besides, you’d do well to take a few lessons from her while you have the chance since you don’t seem to have learned much at school...One of these days you’ll have homes of your own and maybe, I don’t know, the way things are going you’ll not always have servants to look after you...in any case,” he added weakly, “a bit of sewing never did anyone any harm.”
“I think I’m going to faint,” Faith said grimly and sat down heavily on the bed, making its springs creak.
“Ugh! That’s the corpse’s death-bed you’re sitting on, Faithy.”
“You’ll speak of Angela with respect,” snapped Edward, “or you’ll both get a hiding and be sent to your rooms.”
“Why me? It was Catty that said it,” Faith said grumpily. “And what’s more I am feeling sick and will probably start spewing any moment.”
“Faith, don’t be disgusting,” Charity said, grinning in spite of herself. “You’ve started me feeling peculiar too.”
“Shut up, both of you, and pick one of these dresses before I lose my patience. They’re as good as new and some of them were never worn.”
“Which ones?” asked Faith dubiously, poking at the heap of clothing with her tennis racket.
The Major had lit his pipe and was watching the twins as they rummaged in the pile of clothing, holding dresses up to see what they looked like. It was clear (one of the countless things the Major had never known about her) that Angela had dressed extravagantly. Almost all her dresses had tucks in descending horizontal tiers; there was a heavy afternoon dress of velvet embossed with chrysanthemums which reached to the ground and trailed in a swallow-tail behind; there were heavy woollen dresses with overdresses, all with a great deal of frogging and embroidery; there was a blue satin evening dress with a band of black velvet that trailed as a sash behind; there was a dress of black taffeta or chiné silk with a vast amount of braid; and there was a moleskin cape and muff.
“It’s all so horribly old-lady!”
“Come on, we haven’t got all day,” Edward told them. “Make up your minds. If you don’t pick one of these dresses each within thirty seconds I’ll pick them for you.”
Under this threat the twins reluctantly made their selections: Charity a simple blue linen morning dress with a white organdie collar, Faith a silk jersey afternoon dress with a belt of gold cord and tassels to the ankles.
“I feel a bit sick, Daddy...”
But Edward’s patience was now clearly at an end and the twins retired sullenly to change.
Slumped in an armchair, the Major