J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘Of course, when I am back on my feet there will be changes in this house and soon.’

Out in the barn, Foxy was another mass of welts, bumps and bruises, seated on his milking stool slapping away the kicks of the cow.

‘I’ll get them. All four of them cunts. One at a bloody time.’

Foxy groomed my pony, blacked its hoofs and plaited its mane and turned me out in some splendour each hunting day and I’d find him evenings before by lantern light in the tack room rubbing my boots and leathers.

‘But Foxy it will be the worse for you if you try to get revenge.’

‘Ah it’ll be one full moon and before it’s half up in the sky, I’ll be gone out of here and be far away. All I’m getting in this place is pennies for wages anyway. Join the circus or something like that. It’ll be here now soon at the village. Have you been pulling your prick like I told you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did the juice come out.’

‘No.’

‘You want to keep pulling. Just a few little tugs is not enough.’

The bog fight still the talk of the countryside all these months later. With the maids still snickering behind their hands. And Crooks thinking I had with Foxy put the bottles on the stairs. Now each full moon, with the moist slates on the barn roofs shining silver, I watch out the window across to where I can just see through a valley made by the tree tops. And beyond, the distant darknesses of the rest of the world. Leaving me standing here as the gales come roaring out of the west and bang doors somewhere through the night, making my life all fearful and lonely. And that I, like Foxy should go out and away from Andromeda Park forever.

Appearing white faced and chilled but far more dapper than usual with a reddish moustache sprouting on his upper lip, Mr Arland patted me reassuringly on the back. Repairing as we did now to the salon, daily aired and recently spick and span with its furnishings dusted and the warped cover of the grand piano gleamingly polished. At the big map table in front of a roaring log fire we sat and on the large globe of the world traced the ancient excursions of St Brendan.

‘Ah yes Kildare, to be sure, St Brendan discovered the new world long before Columbus did. Quite extraordinary how scholars jump to their sometimes premature conclusions. Even the Vikings were on those nether shores five hundred years before that chap the Spaniard. Although dear me, does it really matter when one considers America’s total and abysmal lack of culture.’

And Sexton, prior to rushing as he did all over the house with his vases in the wake of Miss von B was one morning in the flower room cutting and pruning his stems. And arranging his winter greeneries, holly, wild berries and bog grasses, when he held up a catkin.

‘Now this unisexual inflorescence would do that intellectual humbug Arland a world of good presenting it to his inamorata he’s paying court to away over there on the outskirts of town.’

‘What do you mean by that Sexton.’

‘I mean the young blue eyed lady with the long golden hair who rides to the hounds like a little queen. Sure she’s a distant relation of the Thormonds if not the Darcys. And Baptista Consuelo are her christian names. Now wasn’t that fool Arland refused as he asked for her hand in marriage. And he hardly knows the girl.’

‘Mr Arland is not a humbug nor a fool.’

‘Ah little you know. He was a fool a fool, sine dubio, a fool. Refused he was as he knelt, knelt would you believe it, on the very steps of her house with his nosegay. Sure the decent people inside didn’t know what to do answering the door to that besotted suitor. He was lucky it was pouring rain which kept the crowd to a minimum who were spying on the ridiculous spectacle from behind every curtain and abutment.’

‘Mr Arland never did that.’

‘He did. He did. He did, I’m telling you. Sure he’s a perfect stranger to the girl and what would she want with the likes of him when she could have the biggest earl, cattle dealer or duke she fancies in the district. Sure it’s divitiae virum faciunt everywhere these days.’

Before Christmas as the wet early afternoon days grew dark, Mr Arland escorted me in the governess’s cart drawn by Petunia to the great castle for dancing class. And the first of twelve to be held following lunch on Monday Wednesday and Thursday of each week. Bundled up in rugs and hatted with sou’westers, we fast trotted the five miles by the winding road, the breeze blowing at us warmed by the steamy fat quarters of Petunia. Passing as we did around that half of the village green where I saw the large stone house behind its tall clipped hedge and iron fence. A gravel walk between neat square lawns up to the granite steps. And when Mr Arland turned to look back staring at the grey building, his eyes moist with wind and mist, there came no reprimand as I asked.

‘Mr Arland what is the literal of divitiae virum faciunt.’

‘Riches make the man.’

Not till we finally came in under the arch of the gate lodge of the great castle, clip clopping over the pebbled drive under vaulted silver branches of the beech trees, would Mr Arland arouse from his silence. And as the road dipped downwards he said, let’s have a run. And snapping the whip we’d go hair flying over the remaining winding road through the park land. To rein to a stop on the gravel in front of the entrance door. And there before us with its great towers and turrets rising in grey stone splendour stood the castle I had so often seen in the distance across the countryside.

Mr Arland lifting and thumping the knocker, an iron fist on an iron arm. Letting it fall pounding on the thick slabs of oaken wood. And we waited and waited till he pulled on a gleaming brass knob set in the wall.

‘I prefer not to have to use this bell as it rouses too many of the servants who shortly will be at many windows nosey to see, who it is who is calling upon the high the good and the mighty.’

Inside, the sound of heavy beams, chains and shackles being loosed. Scrapes and bumps as the massive portal opens. And we entered this fortified vestibule to go up steps and through another pair of oaken doors and out into a huge hall, its vaulted ceiling high as clouds, its walls hung with flags, weapons of war, portraits and emblems, and the whole chamber as big nearly as all the rooms of Andromeda Park put together. A tall bent grave faced butler called Simpers received us and took our coats. It was said he always examined the cut and fabric of each garment, and would, with apparel offending his sensibilities, hang them in a place which he thought suitable to their inferiority. And I saw him hesitate with Mr Arland’s naval great coat before deciding that it deserved to be hung well. And before Simpers returned, Mr Arland gave me a little bow and smile.

‘Kildare, don’t sneeze, don’t fall, don’t trip and don’t associate with those who do. But waltz well. Ta ta.’

Mr Arland brushing down his waistcoat and lapels, disappeared through a door to another room off the hall where he was lecturing several collected ladies on the architecture of the Byzantine. And I was left standing there in the monstrous semi darkness as Simpers with his permanent stoop shuffled out of the shadows and led me away from these towering walls hung with their vast tapestries, ancient killing implements and where beneath these trophies and in the glow of a log fire I felt awfully sad about Mr Arland and his love spurned by the blue eyed girl with the golden hair who lived in the town in the grey stone house overlooking the village green.

Behind Simpers I went by a door up a candlelit stair hung with portraits to a landing. Then by another door up another staircase to a dark long hall and by pink carpet past endless bedroom doors and intersecting corridors. And yet by another door and up more stairs of more portraits to finally emerge in a large attic hall half way down which was a large room with a skylight and the windows barred. Here, with music crackling out of a great horn of a gramophone, a blond curly haired gentleman stood attired in light blue tights with three prominent little bumps bulging between the fork of his legs where no horse yet had bitten away what men usually had there. And flexing the muscles of his thighs he lisped in his high pitched voice.