J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘I am feeling immeasurably improved today. Thank you. You have been out exercising.’

‘Yes. We went a long ride around the lake. We were lost but behind Kern and Olav I found my way again. And I am pleased to see you so much better.’

‘I shall be up and about by Monday.’

‘No. You must not. I do not think the doctor would allow that.’

‘I must. To stop them taking away our trees.’

‘You are still so thin, pale. You take too much responsibility. What matter a few trees. There are thousand and thousand.’

‘I want nothing further to leave this place, not a branch, piece of straw or blade of grass.’

‘And of course, what does it matter if they take a few bits of wood. They pay something. It would be more important if they pay nothing and they take your cattle, your land, or even the beauty from your face.’

‘They are indeed madam already taking these things. And more often than not, paying nothing.’

‘Ah my poor darling. There is but one thing that is important, that no one can ever take your good manners from you.’

‘Miss von B. I thank you for saying that. Undeserved as I fear it may be. And especially in the light of my recent life. I do appreciate it. I think I am at a cross roads. And which way I turn may indeed be the direction of my whole destiny.’

‘Ah you are far too young to speak so. Life it comes. Bang. It knock you a little this way. Bang. It knock you a little bit the other way. And the direction you go. Well you are lucky if it is not backwards.’

‘Or bang, it could madam, flatten one altogether.’

‘Yes, it does do that too. But then we must get up again.’

‘I am going to get up and go away from here.’

‘Come come. In this house, as I say so often to you, this is where your life will be. You are sitting reading, so comfortably your book. Where it tell you how to bribe a saint and about the sin, priests and beggars everywhere. What could make a good Protestant gentleman happier. And you can as you will do, read just like that into your old age.’

‘My father will come. We shall argue. I know.’

‘How do you know he will come. When he did not come when I. Ah perhaps I should not say.’

‘Say what.’

‘O please, let us forget. It was nothing.’

‘It is something. You said my father did not come. When I was dying. That’s what you meant.’

‘He may not have got the cable. Plus as you know, you did not die.’

‘Yes, plus, I do know. But he will. He will come as soon as I stop the agent from selling the trees.’

‘Too many rashers of bacon for you at breakfast, that is what the matter is. You are getting your oats. Feeling them I mean. With your appetite back.’

‘I am I must admit rather deeply at this moment feeling my oats. And further for a long time now I have in fact been thinking. That things may not remain the same as one had expected they might. Especially now that Mr Arland has left.’

‘I did myself too become much fond of Mr Arland.’

‘O dear, I do desperately miss him. We did have some rather nice evenings together. One does not want to be unseemly and sentimental. But I cannot imagine my future here now. Andromeda Park is rather just a big old rambling monument to antiquity. And I do believe I’ve outgrown it.’

‘Come come. What is this. First no one is to take away a blade of grass. And now you speak of going away. And leave altogether. Ah I think you are just a little low after your sickness.’

‘The best part of my indisposition I suppose has been that you are now speaking friendly to me again. And that madam, is making me distinctly more content.’

‘Ah little man sometimes you are so sweet.’

‘Why madam do you stay here.’

‘Because there is plenty to eat.’

‘I see.’

‘Ah but I am half joking of course. I stay because I like it. At first I did not like you. But now I like you. And I like to live in the country. It is somewhere very pleasant. When you have nowhere. Of course I miss the mountains. The snow. The skiing. The crisp cold air. And the white everywhere. But then here there is the hunting. And such beauty over the fields. The crazy people who hunt. Who give me-a laugh. Like imbeciles when the fox run out, they all shout and scream which way he went. So I shout too.’

‘Of course madam that is quite incorrect. To point to the line the fox has taken you must put your horse in that direction, take off your hat and hold it out in front of you.’

‘But of course which of them could do that, each with a bottle of whiskey in them before breakfast they don’t know where they point.’

‘Please madam, come closer. I do like that coat on you. And you know don’t you that I have been very much wanting these days to put my arms around you. And hold you.’

‘Ah ha. How do you say, you are randy.’

‘That is not madam a ladylike term.’

‘Ah but it is what you are.’

‘Please don’t make light of my feelings. It’s not usually customary for me to express myself in this candid fashion concerning one’s deeper emotions. You wouldn’t would you, think it was disagreeable if I could just rest my head against your bosom.’

‘I will perhaps if you are a good boy, come back later tonight. And hold your hand.’

‘Now.’

‘No. Anyone could come in. Why do you take such a risk. When your father is suspicious already and you have run away from school.’

‘Well then we must do all we can do right now. Otherwise everything is going to be too late.’

‘Ah a relief to hear someone is in a rush. That is welcome for a change.’

‘Are you going to the next meet of the hunt.’

‘Yes.’

‘I shall join you.’

‘But you are not to do so. You are to stay as the doctor says, indoor for some time yet. And certainly not to hunt. So many are out who are all so stupidly dangerous.’

‘Ah madam in hunting there are but two words about safety. Should this in the least concern you, the words are. Don’t hunt.’

Sunday the sun outside was momentarily shining bright as heaven, as Sexton would say, and feeling much stronger, I walked through the house. Even to the spick and span ballroom. The parquet all waxed and gleaming. Where I felt it might be time for me to hold a grand party. Invite everyone of note from all over the countryside excluding only the very meanest. Unless they were especially of significance. No point in cutting off one’s social nose just to stick to one’s principles. And let them drink the cellars clean. Then before I decamp, pile straw in some quantity in the front hall and set to it a match and burn the whole ruddy place down just as the local peasantry have been threatening to do for centuries.

Darcy Dancer passing down the hall to the schoolroom. On the wall the old barometer newly cleaned. Its brass polished and hung back up again where it had not been for years. Its gilt doves surmounting its dial nestled in gilt oak boughs. Makes one feel you know the mystery of what’s happening out across the skies. And its rectangular mirror flanked by thermometers. Reading as usual rather cool interior temperatures and the weather pointer pointing as it always did between variable and rain. Everywhere one sees the work of Miss von B. Her constant improvements are the only things that give one hope for the future.

From out of the back of the library clock Darcy Dancer fetched the key to the gunroom. To unlock the big heavy iron barred door to that windowless chamber and therein choose from the mahogany rack of firearms my grandfather’s best shotgun. To polish and wipe clean its barrels of dust. Fill my gunbelt with a dozen cartridges. Just as Crooks pushed open the door.

‘Begging your pardon Master Reginald. I wasn’t sure that it was your footsteps I heard on the floor below in the wine cellar. You’re shooting.’