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By Root 1145 0

senseless act is both normal and inevitable. It was as if these newspaper articles were poultices placed on sudden inflammations of violence. In a day or two all the poison had been drawn out of them. They became random events of the year 1919, inevitable, without malice, part of history. The old man lying on the bridge with his watch in his hand was a part of history. And thus, the Major reflected—looking out of his window at the bustling traffic of Dame Street, at the gentlemen in bowler hats, at the fine ladies in their billowing dresses, at the flower and fruit sellers, at the ragged women with babies and barefoot children clinging to their skirts begging in the street below “For the Mercy of God”...“For the Holy Vargin!”...at the gleaming motor cars, at the friendly faces, at the jaunting—cars with their nodding horses and at all the other things which would not be recorded—a particle of the history of this year is formed. A raid on a barracks, the murder of a policeman on a lonely country road, an airship crossing the Atlantic, a speech by a man on a platform, or any of the other random acts, mostly violent, that one reads about every day: this was the history of the time. The rest was merely the “being alive” that every age has to do.

This thought must have displeased him, for he said to himself: “I’ll leave tonight and go back to London. And then perhaps I’ll go abroad and spend the winter in Italy.” The boat train left Westland Row at ten past seven. He would get into Euston at half past five tomorrow morning. “I have plenty of time. I’ll ring for someone to pack my bags.”

But at this moment there was a knock on the door. It was the chambermaid in her black uniform and white apron and cap. She had a telegram for him. It was from Edward to say that Angela had died the night before and would he return to Kilnalough as soon as possible.

Gone to the angels. The Major thought about her on the train back to Kilnalough. He thought about the tea-party the day he had arrived in Kilnalough a few weeks earlier; indeed, it was his only memory of her. He had no other. And somehow he could not help smiling sadly when he remembered her fierce nostalgia in the tropical gloom of the Palm Court.

And now Angela had gone to join the ancient pre-Raphaelite poets and the steady-eyed explorers who had shed their earthly envelopes (as the saying goes). She had gone to join the dead rowing blues (they were most probably among those blurred chaps on Edward’s War Memorial) who had quaffed pre-war champagne out of her slippers. She had gone to the place where all the famous people go, and the obscure ones too for that matter.

“I’m dying,” she had said to him, “of boredom,” and even that remembered statement seemed to lack pathos or tragedy. It was almost as if one might expect to find “of boredom” written on her death certificate. “Well,” he thought, “I don’t mean to laugh at her, poor girl. She must have been ill even then.” Indeed, it made him feel sad to think of her now, sitting there in that pseudo-tropical clearing in Kilnalough and dying “of boredom,” if not of something that reminded her more painfully of the harshness of reality, of the transience of youth, and of her own mortality.

The Major did not arrive at the Majestic until after dark and it would not have surprised him to find nobody there to greet him. However, as he climbed the stone steps and dragged open the massive front door he saw that there was a glimmer of light in the foyer. The electric light appeared not to be functioning but an oil lamp was burning dimly on the reception desk and beside it, asleep on a wooden chair, was the old manservant, Murphy. He started violently as the Major touched his arm and gave a gasp of terror; it was true that there was something eerie about this vast shadowy cavern and the Major himself felt a shiver of apprehension as his eyes tried to probe beyond the circle of light into the darker shadows where the white figure of Venus flickered like a wraith. He bent an ear; Murphy was wheezing some information.

Edward had retired early