Troubles - James Gordon Farrell [150]
It was some time before the Major perceived what Edward had in mind, partly because he found it impossible to believe that any man in his right mind could prefer Mrs Roche, charming though she was, to Sarah—but then he remembered the jeering remark he had overheard and concluded that Edward was treating it as a challenge—and partly because Edward’s method of courtship was a curious one, consisting of advances so discreet as to be virtually invisible to anyone but himself. For example, he treated Mrs Roche herself with decorous formality and instead engaged her mother in long conversations which soon became—since Mrs Bates only allowed herself an occasional smile or nod of agreement—a rather frantic series of questions and answers, both supplied by Edward himself. “Ah, I see you’re interested in that painting over there,” he would say if Mrs Bates’s gaze wandered away from his face. “It shows King William crossing the Boyne after the famous battle...All the smoke in the background and so forth...” And then, shaking his head: “You’re wondering just what it was all about, I expect, apart from the religious aspect. Well, I’m afraid you have me there. We must ask Boy O’Neill. He’s sure to know all about it.” “Do we always have such a hard winter in Kilnalough? Now let me see: if I recollect rightly, last year and the year before that...” And so on.
For some time past Edward’s appearance at dinner had become extremely erratic. As likely as not he would be content to eat off his knees wherever in the hotel Murphy, carrying a tray, happened to find him. But now he once more took to appearing punctually and presently he got into the habit of showing Mrs Roche to a seat at the end of the table where he sat himself, thereby dislodging old Mrs Rappaport to sit at the end of the Major’s table. They were too far away to talk to each other, of course, but think of their position—one at each end of the table! It gave them such an air of being en famille that Edward was clearly embarrassed to be making his intentions so obvious; yet to his evident surprise Frances Roche showed no sign of being aware of them, chatting pleasantly as she had always done to the old ladies sitting on either side. There was no sign at all of blushes or swoons or melting glances (some of the looks the old ladies gave him, on the other hand, would have turned the milk sour). Was Mrs Roche perhaps rather stupid? Edward might have wondered. As a scientist, of course, he should have known that young ladies no longer functioned, physiologically speaking, quite as they had done when he was a young man: they no longer swooned in a difficult situation (“indeed,” thought the Major gloomily, “the modern young lady would be more likely to punch you on the jaw”). But Mrs Roche seemed even to be unaware that she was in a difficult situation.
He was getting nowhere. Like it or not, if this difficulty was ever to be resolved he would have to make his overtures even more brutally frank. Thus, at any rate, did the Major interpret the fact that Murphy was ordered to place the soup tureen and plates at Mrs Roche’s end of the table so that she should serve the food. And she did serve the food—with Edward’s dilated pupils fixed to her homely features, trying to find some trace of awareness in them. But Mrs Roche ladled the transparent, faintly steaming bouillon into one dish after another as if she were doing the most natural thing in the world, which indeed she was.
Edward was beginning to lose heart by now. He had taken to brooding darkly at his end of the table. He was bewildered, the Major could see. One had to feel sorry for him. But then the Major thought of Sarah and hardened his heart as with a sigh he turned back to sift through the watery hot-pot on his plate in search of a piece of meat suitable for Mrs Rappaport’s marmalade cat, sitting on its stool and staring him down with expressionless, acid eyes.
The next thing was to take Mrs Roche for