The Empire Trilogy (43 page)

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 afternoon drives in the Daimler. These tended to be tedious and repetitive because, with the country in such an uproar, it was not safe to go far afield. The twins were usually present, conscripted at the price of violent scenes and sulks to chaperon their father. Sarcastic remarks were passed about the beauties of the countryside. Worse, the twins had recently become experts on the subject of sexual intercourse, thanks to a volume wrapped in brown paper lent to them by one of the young Auxiliaries. As a result they were inclined to take a disabused view of all relations between men and women, and this view even extended to their father's afternoon drives in the motor car. “Oh, for heaven's sake grab her, Daddy,” the appalled Major overheard Faith groaning to her sister. “Throw her on her back, that's what she wants!”

But Edward, of course, did nothing of the sort and gradually, although Mrs Roche continued to sit at the end of his table, the afternoon drives declined in frequency and were forgotten.

“One needs every now and then to escape from the company of women into a place from which women are excluded. After all, unless he has sisters or comes from the lower classes a young Englishman is likely to grow up entirely among males. Later in life he simply isn't accustomed to a heavy dosage of female company. And surely, if the English gentleman is respected throughout the world for his courtesy towards the gentler sex, it is because he takes care to provide himself with a room in which he can be alone in the company of other men.” So the Major was thinking as he sat in the gun room with Edward on a frosty moonlit night.

It was very quiet. There was no movement in the house or in the trees outside the window. Edward was gazing abstractedly into the fire, enjoying a rare moment of tranquillity. Presently, however, a small oak leaf of white plaster dropped from a wreath on the dim ornamented ceiling and shattered into pieces on the tiles by Edward's feet. He gave a start and peered up at the ceiling.

“We really must do something, Brendan, about the old place. It needs doing up badly. One simply can't let things slide.”

The Major raised his eyebrows dubiously but said nothing. He remembered Edward's indifference about the piece of the façade which had almost crushed the dog Foch. By comparison the distintegration of the ceiling plaster was trivial. But Edward had begun to interest himself in what he was saying.

“There's so much wrong with the place no wonder we get complaints from some of the guests (because we
do
get complaints, Brendan, from time to time). Heaven only knows when we last had a lick of paint and some new wall-paper, not to mention the things like mending broken windows and replacing some of those old curtains that the moths have been getting at...And then we need to have a look at the roof, I hear there was a positive waterfall cascading down one of the servants' staircases during that spell of rainy weather we had over Christmas. And of course we must get that M put back up there...it looks too absurd the way it is... “AJESTIC”...whoever heard of such a word?...and make sure none of the other letters are going to fall off...After all, if one's going to run a hotel it may as well be a good one, what d'you think?”

“I quite agree,” the Major said with a sigh, doubtful that Edward's enthusiasm would last long enough to become action. “I should think the first job is to make sure none of the masonry falls on anybody's head.”

“Absolutely! That's the ticket. Really put the old place back on its feet again. We could clean out the swimming-pool and maybe try to get that wretched ‘Do More' generator working again...”

“And maybe the Turkish Baths,” added the Major, who at that moment felt like taking a Turkish bath and was prepared to join Edward's romancing. Edward was being serious, however.

“The Turkish Baths might present us with a tiny bit of a problem, actually. We did try to get them going again some years back but it was a disaster. The boilers suddenly went haywire and before anyone knew what was happening half a dozen guests had suffered heat prostration...Had to be carried out, poached like lobsters...”

“Well, we must do something about the Palm Court before it undermines the foundations. And the squash court...”

“Ah yes, and the squash court. Of course I'd have to find another place for the piggies, but that shouldn't be impossible. Really, the place has all the amenities...all we need to do is to fix things up. Mind you, with the state of the country this may not be the best time to get people over here from England. But with luck the situation should be under control by the beginning of the season...I hear that Dublin Castle has a plan to start shooting Sinn Feiners by roster until they stop attacking the police...We could put an advertisement in
The Times
and do something about the tennis courts. Pity not to make use of them.”

Edward was on his feet now, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. As he talked he jingled some loose change in his pocket, which caused the Major to wonder where the money for all this splendid refurbishing would come from. But Edward's enthusiasm was infectious. How was it that he had never thought of this before? he was wanting to know. His eyes had been opened! The Majestic was no fantasy. It was solid. It was there! It had everything that was needed... indeed, it had more than most places: it had electric light. It even had a firmly established reputation as a place of fashionable luxury—tarnished, doubtless, but a reputation nevertheless.

Dubious again, the Major listened as Edward talked on excitedly. At his feet Rover stirred and barked fearfully, peering with his sightless eyes into the threatening darkness all around. Poor dog! The Major dropped a soothing hand to scratch that fretfully acute silken ear. Rover allowed himself to sink back to the floor again and yawned, emitting a frightful smell.

Edward was too excited to sleep. It was all the Major could do to prevent him setting off there and then on a tour of the premises, notebook in hand, summoning from their beds masons and carpenters, plumbers, painters and glaziers. When in a little while the Major climbed the stairs to bed he left Edward wandering from one silent, sleeping room to another, raising branched candlesticks to gaze with inspired eyes at cobwebbed walls and dusty brocade curtains which, after all the years they had hung there, still glinted dimly with their heavy gold thread, woven into the dusty, tattered cloth like the thread of hope that runs from youth to age.

Edward continued to move through the house, treading softly as a ghost, staring and staring, his heart beating strongly, his eyes full of tears. He sat down once on the arm of a chair, as if he were drunk, overcome by exhilaration, gazing around at this house which he had somehow never really
seen
before. And he continued for a while to sit there with tears of joy coursing down his cheeks, thinking now of his wife, now of Angela, now of his friend the Major. He sat there until his candles had burned down to thin liquid wafers of wax. Suddenly the thought came to him that he should give a ball—a magnificent ball, the kind of ball they used to give here in the old days. His excitement surged to new heights. This would mark the rebirth of the Majestic! He must go and tell the Major immediately, wake him up if necessary. A Spring Ball will be held at the Majestic in Kilnalough. The pleasure of your company is requested...the formal delicacy of this phrase enchanted him. The pleasure of your company.

Faintly from outside in the park there came the shattering, lonely cry of a peacock. For a moment the sound of that cry disturbed him—aching, beyond hope. As he got to his feet there was a threatening movement in the darkly swaying shadows. But it was only one of the multitude of cats, out for the purposes of hunting or mating in the Majestic's endless forest of furniture.

One evening towards the end of March Edward and the Major were to be seen standing together in the foyer, the latter smoking a thin Havana cigar, the former keeping an apprehensive eye on the drive. The Major was impeccably dressed in white tie and tails—it was easy to see that both he and his tailor were men of distinction. Edward was also dressed in tails, but of a more antique cut—which was strange when one considered the care he normally took about his appearance. Moreover, the contours of his body had changed somewhat over the years that had elapsed since the tailor had done his work: the years revealed themselves in the horizontal strain marks where the top of his trousers surrounded his stomach, in the severe grip that the coat exerted across his shoulders from one armpit to another, encouraging his arms to hang outwards, penguin fashion. Nevertheless he was an imposing figure. Evening dress suited his craggy, leonine features by putting them in a civilized perspective. They made him look both fierce and harmless, a lion in a cage. Even the red carnation he wore in his buttonhole—on Edward's person it gave one a mild shock, as if one had just come face to face with a prizefighter with a flower behind his ear.

“This looks like somebody.”

A Bentley had come nosing up the drive and now, at a walking pace, was making a wide turn in front of the statue of Queen Victoria. A pale glimmer of faces showed at its windows, staring out at the hotel.

“That's deuced odd. They're making off again. You don't think they might have changed their minds at the last moment, do you?”

But the Major did not answer. He was not worried about some guests who could not make up their minds out there in the darkness. He was listening intently. Had he just heard a deep, ominous miaowing issue from some distant reaches of the building?

Those wretched cats, the trouble they had caused! First they had tried hunting them out of the upper storeys with broomsticks, sweeping them out of the rooms, along the corridors and down the stairs into the yard. But it is impossible to control a herd of cats; each one makes up its own mind where it wants to go. You start off with a vast furry flock, terrified and resentful. But then, quick as lightning, they double back or flash between your legs or over your head, zoom up the curtains or on to the top of wardrobes, and sit there spitting at you while you try to reach them with your broom and the rest of the flock disperses. You are lucky if you succeed in ushering out one scarred old ginger warrior whom, likely as not, you find waiting for you once again at the top of the stairs, having slipped back in through a broken window or down a chimney.

“Hello, they seem to be coming back.”

The Bentley had reappeared on the lamplit crescent of gravel travelling slowly backwards, having locked antlers with an immense De Dion-Bouton on the narrow drive. Both motor cars stopped this time and disgorged their occupants, so Edward opened the door and with a welcoming smile on his lips moved out on to the steps. As the Major followed him he again heard that ominous caterwauling in the distance and remembered Edward's brainwave: “Bring the dogs in from the yard and quarter them in the upper storeys...that'll get rid of the bloody cats!” Well, they had tried this, of course. But it had been a complete failure. The dogs had stood about uncomfortably in little groups, making little effort to chase the cats but defecating enormously on the carpets. At night they had howled like lost souls, keeping everyone awake. In the end the dogs had been returned to the yard, tails wagging with relief. It was not their sort of thing at all.

The Major was now shaking hands repeatedly and smiling as he was introduced. More carriages were arriving. Horns were sounding cheerfully. The Hammonds, the FitzPatricks, the Craigs with son and daughter-in-law, the Russells from Maryborough, the Porters, the FitzHerberts and FitzSimons, the Maudsley girls, Annie and Fanny, from Kingstown, Miss Carol Feldman, the Odlums and the O'Briens, the Allens and the Douglases and the Prendergasts and the Kirwans and the Carrutherses and Miss Bridget O'Toole...The Major's head began to swim and his smile became fixed.

“One doesn't shoot cats” (he was thinking as his weary paw gripped that of Sir Joshua Smiley and he bowed pleasantly to his ugly brood of daughters), “one doesn't shoot cats, other quadrupeds one may shoot without a qualm, but not cats.” Still, what else was there to be done? The blessed creatures had to be got rid of somehow (the distant caterwauling, meanwhile, was becoming intense; a whole chorus of tom-cats it sounded like, he could hear it even above the hubbub of the arriving guests)...

So one day he and Edward had steeled themselves to climb the stairs with revolvers. The eucalyptus reek of cats was overpowering, so long had they had dominion over the upper storeys. Ah, the shrieks had been terrible, unnerving, as if it were a massacre of infants that they were about—but it had to be done, in the interests of the Majestic.

Edward these days had a shaky hand; several times he missed altogether, in spite of the long hours of practice he had put in at the pistol-range down by the lodge. Twice he wounded the cats he aimed at. It was the Major who had to seek out the moaning animals and finish them off. All this made a dreadful mess: blood on the carpets, there for ever, ineradicable, brains on the coverlets, vile splashes on the walls and even on the ceiling. Edward, in his excitement, shot out a couple of window-panes and caused a great plaster scroll bearing the words “
Semper fidelis
” to plummet earthwards, taking with it a rotting window-box gay with crocuses from one of the ladies' rooms two storeys below. Apologetic for his poor marksmanship, Edward had insisted on gathering up all the carcases and throwing them into a sack he had brought for that purpose. When they had been collected he threw the sack over his shoulder and descended the stairs. The Major followed, jingling the empty brass shells in the palm of his hand. By the time they had reached the second landing the sack was oozing dark red drops. Fortunately the carpet too was red. The drops scarcely showed.