“…Henry, would you be a dear and carve? Hamish seems busy…”
Felix opened his eyes and stared at the light fixture that hung above the dining table, an ugly wooden chandelier with six light bulbs, suspended on a kind of weighted pulley so that it could be raised and lowered. Empty candelabra stood in the middle of the table. He heard a thud, which gave him a start. All the silver rattled and one of the candelabra swayed and toppled over.
“Intolerable!” exclaimed the major, silencing all conversations. “Quite disgraceful!”
Felix looked distastefully at his father’s sagging face. “What is it, Hamish?” Mrs Cobb asked with concern.
“Albertine tells me that now they’re allowing women to boxing matches. Can you credit it?”
Conversation resumed at once when it was realized nothing significant was happening. Albertine looked a little chastened at the venom her innocent, observation had unleashed, as the major detailed the punishments he’d impose on any daughter of his who ever so much as tried to purchase a ticket.
Felix couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Aren’t you making a terrible fuss about nothing, Father?” he said in his most languid voice. “You’ll let a woman nurse soldiers on a battlefield. Why not watch a boxing match for heaven’s sake?”
“That,” said the major, sitting bolt upright in his chair, “has got absolutely nothing to do with it. Nursing is a duty, a vocation. This is mere titillation. Pleasure seeking.”
“Surely you are not going to deny the fair sex some innocent pleasure?” Felix said.
“Innocent?” the major gasped. He seemed genuinely shocked. “How dare you!”
He banged the table again with his fist and this time all the lights went out. Eustacia gave a little scream at the sudden gloom the room was plunged into. A greyish evening light filtered in through the south windows; everyone looked sick or old. Hattie — or was it Dora? — started to cry.
“For God’s sake, Agatha,” the major bellowed down the table at his wife. “This is all your fault. What was wrong with the gas, that’s what I want to know?”
“Don’t panic,” called Henry Hyams, still clutching the carving knife and fork. “Women and children first!” He started roaring with laughter, which only incensed the major further.
“Ring the damned bell,” shouted the major. “The bell. Get a servant in here, for God’s sake.” He jumped to his feet and followed his own advice, striding to the bell push set in the wall and, jamming his finger down on the button as if it were a detonator, held it there.
“Father,” Felix said, getting up. “I’ll go. The generator will have broken down, that’s all. By the way,” he said casually as he left the room, “you’re wasting your time. It’s an electric bell.” He quickly pulled the door shut behind him as he heard his father’s wrath erupt again.
He looked about him: the entire house was in darkness. He could hear a babble of voices from the kitchen. He walked down the passageway and through the swing doors.
“Hello, May,” he said to the cook. “Generator gone, I suppose. Cyril about?”
May was a thin elderly woman with a sourer expression than Eustacia’s, which effectively contradicted any vernal notions summoned up by her name. She jerked her thumb at the back door beyond which lay the coal store and wash house.
“He’m out back, Mister Felix. Shouldn’t take him a minute. ‘S always stopping these days.”
Felix stepped outside. The cool gloom of a cloudy summer night caused him to shiver. He walked quietly down to the wash house, part of which had been given over to the new electric light plant. Cyril, the gardener and handy man, was bent over the machine, peering at it with the aid of a torch. Felix paused at the door and listened to him muttering.
“Fuckin buggerin no good bit a bloody lump a scrap metal. Most shittin buggerin useless fuckin heap of shite I’ve—”
“Evening Cyril.”
“Chroist! Ooh God. It’s you, Felix. Whew, gave me a bloody fright though. Jesus. How are you?”
Holland had told Felix it was a worthwhile exercise to get on friendly terms with someone from the working classes. Felix had chosen Cyril.
“Very well,” he said. “Machine packed in?”
“Forgot to put the bloody Benzol in, didn’t I?” Cyril rubbed his hands on his waistcoat. He was a big lumpy young man. Clean shaven with an unlined, almost Chinese look to his face. His hair was black and wiry and combed straight back which gave an odd streamlined bullet shape to his head.
“Like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it, pouring Benzol in that machine,” Cyril averred. “Here, I’d better get it going. Won’t be a tick.”
He unscrewed the top from a can of Benzol, placed a funnel in the generator’s fuel tank and poured the fuel in with a tinny gurgling sound. The smell of Benzol filled the cool room. Felix smiled to himself. Although it had started as an exercise to improve his conception of true socialist thinking, he found he liked Cyril a lot and enjoyed his candid, foul-mouthed company. Cyril told him anything he wanted to know.
Felix wandered over to the line of huge basins and picked-up an oily pamphlet that lay on the draining board. It was an instruction manual for the small motor that charged the battery the lights were run from. Holding it to the faint light coming in a window, he flicked through the pages.
“Cyril,” he said, chuckling to himself. “It says here that ‘an unskilled servant can do the work without any knowledge of electricity’. What’s going wrong?”
Cyril swore again. “I knows all about beggin’ electrics. I just don’t know how many people are going to be puttin’ up at the house do I? I sees it all lit up like some kind of…of a palace down the drive. Christ, I says, Cyril boy, if you don’t get some soddin’ Benzol in that motor them batteries’re going to be flatter than a stepmother’s kiss. And look what bloody happens just as I’m topping her up.” He jerked the lanyard on the motor and with a clatter the engine started up again.
“Bastard,” Cyril addressed the shuddering unit. The lights flickered and went on. He turned to Felix.
“How are you then, Felix? Looking forward to this wedding, then, are you?”
“Well, I suppose so. I haven’t met my future sister-in-law yet. She’s not long back from India. Cigarette?”
“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” Cyril wiped his hands on his trouser seat before accepting one. He looked at it. “Turkish?”
“Egyptian.” Felix lit both their cigarettes.
“Not bad,” Cyril exhaled. “Think I’ll stick to Woodbine all the same…Nah, I met her.” He adjusted his stance, widening his feet and easing his shoulders. “Day they came to chuck us out of the cottage. Mr Gabriel, Mrs Cobb and Miss…Whatsername.”
“Miss Lavery,” Felix over-articulated. “Miss. Charis. Lavery.”
“Charis, eh? Funny name. No, but, she seemed nice enough, though. Very pleasant. Sort of apologizing. I suppose she were a bit embarrassed seein’ as it were our house, like. Nice little cottage that was. Mind you, there are good things about living in the village. The pub, for starters.”
“Yes.”
Cyril ground his cigarette out with a toe of his heavy hobnailed boots, then picked the butt up and flicked it out of the door.
“I better get back home,” he said. “Or the wife’ll be thinking I’m stopping off for ale.” He put on his jacket, which had been draped over one of the basins. He wore a badly cut suit of thick coarse wool, almost like a blanket or felt. He took a wide flat cap out of his pocket and put it on.
“See you in church then, Felix,” he said, winking. “Cheer-ho.”
“What’s she like?” Felix said. “I mean, what does she look like?”