‘Where’s the fire.’
‘If I may say so sir, in every bedroom. In the sitting rooms. In the bathrooms. And I am kilt with the running back and forth. ’Tis good to see you back. This place has never seen the like. With old Pete and Willie dead as well. I am just after hearing that the boiler for the hot water is blown up in the kitchen. And I am to get the other boiler going. And I have been this very night again assaulted. Interfering up me, by him, Crooks.’
‘Ah Mollie, my dear. Well, so nice to be reminded so soon that by the sound of things, one is home.’
Old Pete and Willie, one’s ancient retired pair of tack room habitués. Sitting puffing on their pipes. Like old pieces of furniture in one’s life, always there. Now gone. And clearly one of my sisters was taking her final step to displace me out of my mother’s apartments. A new wardrobe shoved into the dressing room. Peach silk sheets emblazoned with coronets on the bed. And following my cold bath, shivering in front of my fire in my dressing gown, Sexton arriving at the door. In his Sunday best.
‘Master Darcy, welcome home, I’m glad you’re back. Ah god they come at us, the guests, s’il vous plaît like a thousand horsemen. A line of them nearly now down to the front gates. And a bit of sad news. Pete and Willie sir, both have had it. Happened in the orchard. Wasn’t I watching Pete in a beam of sunshine him taking relief of his bladder against the wall. On one of my prize roses. And he keeled over. Sure I knew it wasn’t an act by the way he fell. I rushed to him. And old Willie came in the gate. And as soon as I said to him. Pete’s gone. He’s gone Willie. Says I. I turn then. At the thump beside me. Willie too. Fell. In his tracks. Stone dead when I put my hand to him.’
‘Have we coffins.’
‘There’s one spare alright. Over in the old mill house. Gave it a few last belts of the hammer. And both boxes are ready to rest comfortably their mortal contents. Wake the corpses tonight each in his cottage. Neither of them have kin. Ah all they had, the pair of them. Was each other. And another little piece of poor news now as well. The garden wall, forty yards of it, all twelve feet high fell like the slap of a hand out into the meadow.’
‘O god Sexton. Poor news. That’s disastrous news.’
‘Ah but now sir, with the good advices of the Professor Botanist of Trinity College Dublin, a plan is drawn for the expansion of the conservatory, and the new gardens, the greatest ever seen on this island.’
‘Sexton, for god’s sake, I know this is all meant well, but I am, I fear, aided and abetted by what is happening in this house this very night, about to have to dismiss all of you save those who still stay on and go bankrupt into starvation with me. We are in short all finished.’
‘Now how do you figure that now sir.’
‘Am I to put it more succinctly than that, Sexton. Would the word destitute help. My venture to Dublin produced nothing more than an expensive recovery of our silverware. And simply resulted in the further inclination in the steepness of the slope upon which I now find myself sliding at an ever increasing speed. I may hold out an impecunious week or two more.’
‘Now sir.’
‘No Sexton, there can be no argument. Even the agent is taking me to court. There’s not enough fodder for the cattle. And if there were, there’s no market for them anyway. No wages. I have exactly those few fivers you see there on that dresser left. And that is, I assure you Sexton, nothing to smile about.’
‘Ah now, in a minute, Master Darcy, in a minute. I can tell you something. If you’d like to continue with the roll call of misfortune.’
‘It’s simply too long.’
‘Well now I’ve examined my conscience Master Darcy. And the moment I think has arrived.’
‘What moment.’
‘Ah now, a particular moment. And we need go no further with this discussion. You’re to come with me in the morning. I can say no further than that. Other than you might bring a witness.’
‘Good lord Sexton, O jesus, not another blasted writ that someone is serving upon me or something.’
‘Hop not with anger now. Nothing of the kind. And I’ll forgive you your little slip of blasphemy in the meantime. We’ll meet in the morning. If it’s appropriate to you, I’ll knock at the library. Would before lunch do.’
‘O god Sexton, I don’t think I can sleep upon another bloody mystery.’
‘Ah, you will and your dreams should not be nightmares.’
In the front hall. Barrels of Guinness stout and cider. Not a soul one knows. As here one is, in a distinctly makeshift variety of grandpapa’s white tie and tails. Wandering towards the ballroom, orchestra thundering the rafters blasting out a lightning polka. Step through the open double doors. Even the brass hinges shined. One looks. And a more ruinous sight one could never see. Kitty, Norah and Dingbats ferrying trays. Couples swirling upon the waxed gleaming floor. Crinoline satin and silks. The conductor fanning the air with a baton. Streamers flying from the ceiling. Beneath the great black marble chimney piece, a massive log fire blazing. Every flower Andromeda Park possesses, obviously wrested in from the hothouse. And the dusty bottles up from the cellar. With their rat nibbled labels of what could be my very last most precious irreplaceable, Madeira, port, claret. Not to mention rum and brandy. The four charcoal cooked hams from Smyth’s of the Green, the goose liver pâté, caviar. All already quickly disappearing. Buns being thrown. Hand clapping me on the back. A face I have never seen before.
‘You’re Kildare I understand. All this is jolly nice of you.’
Even though a total stranger, at least one single someone being pleasantly politic. And then the grand finale entrance of Lavinia and Christabel. Both in my mother’s gowns. A trumpet voluntary of the orchestra blasting as they swept in the door. Nearly expected the pair of them in American neon lighted tiaras. With Crooks white gloved behind them his arms wide as if he were presenting them at the Court of St James. Surprised the whole staff of Andromeda Park weren’t laying rose petals before them.
‘I say there, do you mind, if we squeeze by. There’s a good fellow, waiter. Thank you.’
My god. That passing imbecile. One now not only squeezed but nearly crushed out of the limelight. And referred to as a servant. In my own ballroom. Relegated to a corner. Picking up a glass. And then having to find a discarded bottle of champagne to fill it with. I suppose if one must sink. Best to go down in the deep in one continuous swallow. Quaff this in memory of Rashers. This is the way to do it. A grand finale. Instead of like a nearby neighbour who set off for a day’s hunting, leaving his magnifying glass on his freshly pressed The Times newspaper from London. And on the particular rare sunny afternoon, the paper ignited and burned his house to the ground. And before being in a similar circumstance, one will make oneself heard in this throbbing din.
‘I should like to know the entire meaning of this entire night, Lavinia.’
‘It’s absolutely none of my business, ask Christabel.’
‘I have just asked her. And she said it was none of her business. And rudely suggested I shut up.’
‘Well shut up then, why don’t you.’
Amazing. To have to grit one’s teeth wanting to strangle them. Even as I forthrightly accosted them both in the centre of their toadying clusters of admirers. Neither one of them even deigned so much as to introduce me. To what they imagined were clearly their superior friends. One could hear the commissionaire still reverberating announcing their arrivals. Which would clearly go on till past midnight. Even the occupants of the great castle, noteworthy intellectuals, turning up. Whom one had not ever met oneself, as they were always on their world travels. Even heard this whole bloody ruddy financial débâcle referred to as a social coup.
‘I do think, don’t you that Lavinia and Christabel have rather pulled it off. All in aid of finding husbands of course.’
Could spot the faces of Catherine the cook, Henry and Thomas, the herds, peeking in at the ballroom serving staircase. One suddenly remembering a nice little game my sisters taught me as a t
oddler. Go Darcy dear, to the barrels in the hall, turn the tap as we showed you. Rush I would, to reach, and struggle to finally twist the tap, and stand marvelling at the dark brew flooding down over my knees and creeping out making an enormous black shiny lake in the hall. To then get, as my sisters rejoiced in laughter, a furious chastisement from an angry nanny. And so strange now. To feel so utterly alone. At least I shall munch on a thick slice of ham. In a house that hardly any longer seems my own. Where, were Rashers here, at least, even with his perpetrations of diabolical liberties upon my basic good nature, I would be cheered. Instead of gloomily despondent. Amid the perfumes. The plethora of ladies’ flesh. The pop of corks. And even this nearby debutante, not at all unpretty, giving me an inviting eye, as the musicians finish playing what she refers to as a foxtrot.
Darcy Dancer walking from the ballroom. Orchestra striking up the Blue Danube Waltz. Passing the still arriving couples. A crowded front hall. Coats hats now stacked everywhere. Ladies’ loud giggles. Men’s laughter. Shouts of greetings. My hand to be put upon the banister. To climb these stairs. Wait till the morrow to pay my last respects to Pete and Willie. Retreat now and retire asleep. Sexton in the morning will probably demonstrate to me some brand new winter flower he’s invented to make our fortunes. Heard someone say the stars were out. Take a tired step up. One at a time. To stop. And shudder. Heart pounding in my chest. The commissionaire’s voice. So loud. So utterly clear. Echoing in the hall.
‘The Marquis and Marchioness of Farranistic.’
Turn. Step back down. Just one two three steps. Near where my grandmother’s portrait hangs. So solemnly watching. Look out into the bright candlelit hall. That face shyly smiling. Her fur taken from her white shoulders. Her slender elegant figure in a clinging shimmery black satin gown. A tiara of diamonds sparkling on her black hair. The Mental Marquis’ flushed face beaming above his white tie. Making an introduction. To all those who would listen nearby. Who I knew heard him saying. Allow me to introduce you to the fourteenth Marchioness.
My wife
Leila
26
All one could remember were snatches of oblivion. And wondering how one would die. Ireland to sink. Covered in a tidal wave. Last night instead of to bed, I went down and out of the house. By the back servants’ stairs. Through the stable yard. The tunnel. And up out across the fields in the bright cold night to where Pete and Willie were being waked, each in their tiny adjoining cottages.
‘Welcome, come in, Master Darcy. Sure there’s room for one more sardine.’
In Pete’s a hooley in progress. Tearing corks out of the bottles of stout. A fiddler playing. Songs singing. Say hello to your uncle Finn me boy. Feet thumping round the cottage’s hard earthen floor, a dance called the whicheverway jump. The ancient turf fire aglow in the grate. Poteen poured. Fresh from a still hidden right in the confines of Andromeda Park. The voices appearing at the door.
‘Friend of the corpse, I am.’
‘Come in then, and welcome, friend of the corpse.’
Johnny Gearoid, his red face blazing out of his greasy coat. Asking, where was the whisky and where was the deceased, in that order. Kitty and Norah arriving with Dingbats. The latter entirely drunk. Hiking up her skirts. Unbuttoning her blouse. Whirling her reasty amplitude about. Making mock curtsies to Kitty and Norah taking turns to be the Marchioness of Farranistic. Until stopped by my angry glare.
‘Ah give us a tune there and I’ll show you a nifty pair of heels to cut ruts in the dust.’
Sexton, the patch fallen off his missing eye, doing a jig. And Pete, the deceased yet to be put in his waiting coffin, was propped up sitting in bed. Kitty and Norah playing noughts and crosses on his bald head with bits of charcoal. Until others of the inebriate, pulled Pete in his white chemise out of the bed and bedroom entirely, struggling in the middle of the cottage floor to hold up the corpse by the armpits to dance.
A white stiff frost on the ground. Passing under one’s eyes. Somewhere in the course of events Midnight Shadow put chauffeurs, nags and guests to rout. Galloping around and nearly up into the house, through the orchard and over the fallen wall. As I was carried halfway back to the front steps over Sexton’s shoulder. To finally rest in one’s bed. Top hat on one’s head. The guests departed. But the not at all unpretty debutante, accosted getting her coat in the darkened hall, tarried to listen to my drunken implorements that she could keep warm in my arms from the freezing cold.
‘Darling, you’re taking the first prelude deplorably slow.’
Of course I didn’t know what on earth she was talking about. And in the morning in the first sunshine. The debutante departed. In a huff, that I would not immediately agree to marry her. Which of course one would have done should she have suggested she had a staggeringly enormous dowry. Head clearing as I sat in the rising silvery vapours of steam up from my bath. Recount the nightmare dreams. An unreachable queen upon her throne. As I knelt begging to some god, I beseech thee, in the bowels of Christ to consider it possible that you may be mistaken that I deserve the fate to which you sentence me. Whither now Leila goes. From my life. Like an autumn swallow. To fly away out into the highest circles far beyond this land. Taking with her, her loyalty. She said was her love. Kept my hope alive. The only future left now is that I still live. Kneeling on this silk bright carpet of my mother’s. Pumping the bellows on the embers of the smoky fire in my room. A knock. Crooks entering. As I step the other side of the screen to dress. In my black thornproof Manx tweed, silk shirt and black silk tie.
‘Master Reginald, I have been asked to convey to you the confidential information that a surprise awaits you sir below in a state room. And may I make a most humble request of you. So many of us now on the place are dying. And I don’t mind saying I take it hard, very hard. And worse is it that former lowly staff, so far below myself, should think themselves better than me now and come back here to spite me, to cut me dead in my tracks. You know of whom I speak. I wept myself to sleep last night. And I’ve had it up to here sir, right up to here.’
‘Where Crooks, I can’t see from behind the screen.’
‘To the very top of my throat sir and I am giving my notice. I simply can’t stomach the ladies Lavinia and Christabel one further moment. Fetch this fetch that. Hiring interlopers. Run me off my feet, countermand my authority. Without your courtesy Master Reginald.’
‘I see Crooks.’
‘I hope you do sir, because it just so happens I caught the pair of them in the blue east parlour firing olive pips from the recently ordered jars from Smyth’s of the Green and hitting your photographic portraiture with remarks such as, ah I got brother precisely between the eyes that time. And Master Reginald I have but one most humble request to make of you. You who have treated me nobly. Would you spare an evening to dine with me, sir prior to my leaving.’
‘Of course I should be most happy to Crooks. Just as I should be entirely sad if you left. Do please say when.’
‘In my quarters sir, at eight tomorrow night if convenient. The new lad I’m putting through his paces will be in attendance upon us.’
The silence. Tiptoe along the hall. Like the awfully well bred person one hoped to remain, in spite of all threatening doom. That one would tread lightly as one does in a house where somewhere there might be a baby sleeping. A pause on the landing. Look out there. From such an empty house as this is now. Suppose, as well as the enormous bill, some tiny good came out of the ball. My sisters setting their caps for the Marquis. And a former servant putting them in their place, with their noses permanently out of joint. And the preening pair of them departed for today’s hunting. Pursuing their own damn selfish pleasures with no respect for the dead. This morning thought I heard Rashers’ voice. Singing, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. The first signs of going mad. To be hearing things. If there is any encouraging comfort left, at least the beauty of the beech grove still stands. Silvery and shining. Jackdaws screaming up in the heights of the branches. Could not find my proper
cuff links. Or indeed the needy appurtenance of my crimson braces. However there are certain manners in dress preparing for the extremes of outdoors, when it is acceptable to appear slightly incorrect. Especially when previous to such an excursion one is only momentarily repairing to the confines of one’s library.
‘Ah Sexton. Sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘Ah Master Darcy isn’t there such a weight of erudition stacked around these walls. And wasn’t it a great night rejoicing had by all to put old Willie and Pete to rest in peace.’
‘I wish I could include myself Sexton. But I am rather hungover. And I haven’t brought a witness.’
‘Ah I have a witness. Just excused himself a moment to visit the gentlemen’s water closet.’
‘Well what is our mystery Sexton. Do I suppose as I suspect, that we get out our treasure maps, our picks and shovels.’
‘Well you’ve nearly put your finger on it now. And the time has come that has been entrusted to me. But no need now for even a toothpick. For your mother’s jewels, Master Darcy, sit as dry as any bone. Down in the stone bowels, safe as houses, under the Bank of Ireland, there in College Green.’
‘Good god, Sexton, is this really true.’
‘As true as an intertwinement of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, brooches can be. And never mind the topazes and rubies. There are pearls, diamonds, emeralds. Fit for the crown jewels of France, from which more than one of them gems came. Needing only two little slips of paper to put them into your possession. And here’s one of them. And you take this to the manager. And he has the other.’
A floorboard squeaking, a rap of a knuckle on the corner of the library book shelf just inside the door. This head stretching forward, grinning at me in my joy. A voice one recognizes clearing its throat. And a body one recognizes in its morning suit.
‘Is it time I am required, by any chance.’
‘Rashers.’
‘Ah Darcy my dear boy, how good it is to see you. I do apologize popping in upon you in this way. But I took the liberty as I knew you would want me to, to come by the first taxi I could flag down in Dublin, as one hobbled down the gangway of the mail boat to dear old Erin’s isle. And as I am a trifle short of change, would you mind awfully awfully paying him off. He’s down I believe presently late breakfasting or perhaps early lunching in your kitchen.’