Free The Empire Trilogy by J. G. Farrell Page A

deliberately avoiding him, so, in theory at least, all he had to do was to station himself beside these cut flowers which she certainly would not leave for long before putting into water.
    A ponderous creaking began on the far side of the room. Ah, it was the dumb-waiter rising from the kitchen, he could see the ropes shivering as it rose. He walked over to have a look at it. Abruptly he had an intuition that there was something strange or terrifying on it: a decaying sheep’s head, for example, or something even stranger, perhaps the cook’s weeping head on a platter surrounded by chopped onions. The dumb-waiter stopped for a moment and then started again. When it reached the top he smiled at what it contained. It was the tortoiseshell cat he had seen in the kitchen, still sitting on the meat-dish. When the conveyance had come to a halt it jumped off and wound through his legs. The dumb-waiter started down again empty.
    A few moments later, with the cat cradled in his arms, he spotted Angela. She was on the next terrace below the tennis court carrying a spray of beech leaves and walking swiftly towards a flight of steps some distance away. Thinking that if he could find the entrance she was making for he might be able to intercept her, he set off rapidly, taking the cat with him for company. The cat did not like the idea, however, leapt out of his arms and vanished back the way they had come. The Major pressed on down the corridor he was following, relatively certain this time that he was going in the right direction. On his way he passed one of the old ladies he had been introduced to the evening before. She was leaning on a stick, arrested half-way between two sharp bends in a long section of the corridor without doors or windows. As he passed she murmured something indignantly but he merely nodded cheerfully, pretending not to hear. He was in a hurry. Excited, he turned another corner at the end of which, by his calculations of the exterior of the building and the distance he had walked, there should be a glass door through which Angela would enter at any moment. But there wasn’t. At the end of the corridor there was merely a blank wall and a musty, dilapidated sitting-room. “This is absurd,” he thought, half irritated and half amused. “To hell with her. I’ll see her at lunch.”
    But Angela failed to appear at lunch. The Major sat beside Edward, who was by turns morose and indignant about the state of the country. Another R.I.C. barracks had been attacked and stripped of arms; the young hooligans had nothing better to do these days, it seemed. They preferred shooting people in the back to doing an honest day’s work. But for all that, he hadn’t noticed many of them coming forward when Sir Henry Wilson had called for volunteers to join in a fair fight. At this the “friend of Parnell,” who was sitting at the next table, stirred uncomfortably and muttered something.
    â€œWhat’s that you say?” demanded Edward.
    â€œThousands of Nationalists fought against Germany,” the old man murmured, his voice still scarcely above a whisper. “Constitutional Nationalists who fought not only for France’s and Belgium’s freedom but for Ireland’s too. Not all Nationalists belong to Sinn Fein, you know...”
    â€œBut they’re all tarred with the same brush. Sinn Fein demands a republic. Why? Because they hate England and sided with Germany during the war. Would they change their tune if Ireland was given Dominion Home Rule? Of course they wouldn’t! It would merely whet their appetites for more. There’s no middle of the road in Ireland, for the simple reason that the Home Rulers are playing right into the hands of Sinn Fein. Perhaps they mean well. Maybe they’re just fools. But the result is the same.”
    â€œThey’re
not
fools!” cried the old man, raising his voice. A faint flush had crept over his gaunt cheeks and