J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘All the colours you cannot see were in the meadow and also in my frock.’

As each page turned she grew bigger. Then there were pictures of her with other girls, her bare arms crossed. And in one, she sat in the long grass on a hillside overlooking a castle. She said she was angry at that moment. She would not say why. Nor when I asked, was she entirely forthcoming as to whose particular castle it was. But it was suitably impressively imposing sitting there with numerous turrets and battlements. And then on the castle terrace she sat a smiling jolly looking girl. Who seemed she might enjoy a good joke and play tricks on you and not nearly be so solemn as she seems now.

‘And here we are for the boar hunting.’

A photograph in a valley on an edge of forest with great white capped mountains rising out of the steep wooded hillsides all around. Gentlemen in breeches and boots and others in short leather trousers with staves and their hats with brushes sticking out. She showed me her robust grandfather with a great moustache and big watch chain across his chest. I thought he looked quite an ordinary chap as a matter of fact. And another sadder one of her walking along a country road in a black dress and a coat tied half way closed and her long tresses over her shoulders. Which she said fell reaching all the way down to her bottom.

‘The week before this picture was taken, the handsome Count to whom I was betrothed had while skiing disappeared forever in an avalanche of snow. In my face you can see the end of the world.’

And that, by my reckoning anyway, was three poor gentlemen of whom she was clearly enamoured gone to their doom. She was clearly such a nice girl. Although in the picture she was only seventeen, she seemed quite grown up. Behind her all in black as well, was her favourite aunt called Mafalda.

‘She did my dear lovely aunt die six months later of consumption. Her husband, he was dead but a year later of grief.’

‘You have haven’t you madam, had much sorrow in your life.’

‘Ah but when you expect little else, it is then just life.’

‘I do think I live in quite as grand a house as some of those you have lived in.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I do think so, madam. I really do. Especially when you include our ballroom.’

‘This. Just look. This is my uncle’s castle. Andromeda Park you could fit into the drawing room and sit on the chimneytop and not be able to touch my uncle’s chandeliers. And besides inside there is beauty and elegance. Not like here, where everything is ruin. There everything it was polished, spotless. Gold leaf, it was simply everywhere. Pearl, marble. Not like this, rotting boards, damp crumbling plaster, pipes that you do not know where they go or what will come out of them.’

‘I rather take that amiss you know.’

‘Ah you poor little peasant, you get so upset when I point out to you that there are far grander places out in the rest of the world. You have never for instance been in a palace. Have you. Come now. Have you.’

‘Of course I have, as you well know. I’ve been in the great castle.’

‘Nothing. Absolutely mere nothing. A palace is so much more splendid. With long long halls of mirrors. Ceilings of mirrors.’

‘Well, when our ballroom shutters are closed they are inside painted gold.

‘You do not paint gold. It is with a hammer you make it into like a leaf.’

‘Well we did have mirrors in our own dining room ceiling. My grandfather had them put there. So he might by casting his eyes upwards peer down upon the ladies’ bosoms and the only reason they were taken away was because the hot dishes from the kitchens fogged them over which angered him when he couldn’t see the ladies’ décolletage and he had them removed.’

Miss von B and I went on and on about our various lists of embellishments. I nearly punched her when she just laughed in a superior manner when I told her of the vine my grandfather had trained to grow from the greenhouse through a hole in his bedroom wall so that he could eat grapes in bed. I thought it a jolly good damn idea even though the grapes never ripened. And then she spoke of all manner of architectural accoutrements, formal gardens and water works. I did somehow think that she was rather putting it on. Assuming graces to which she was not entitled. With her princes, princesses, dukes, duchesses, counts and I may as well say it, cunts and their seemingly endless castles and palaces to which she was privy. In order that I should feel that Andromeda Park was not quite grand enough. Nor my blood royal blue. However I made it quite clear that the Thormonds had not descended to squalor and we could easily claim to be a minor dynasty with a standing in society quite assured. And for many miles about one was still accustomed to locals giving way on the roads. Fortunately, when finished viewing her album we only kept on earnestly discussing that kind of thing for another few hours till perhaps well past midnight. And I was nearly hoarse. When she finally said.

‘You take it all so seriously. I am not saying you do not live here in some refinement.’

‘You are. If you are not directly saying we have descended to squalor then you most certainly infer a distinct lack of stylishness.’

‘Ah. In that, there is far more than a lack. There is none.’

‘What. How dare you. My sisters are ladies of rank and my mother bought her better things from the very leading London shops across the water. And I say damn you.’

‘Ha ha. You sweet little man. Do not upset your lovely dark curls or your vivid marvellous eyes. What matter is it, a little lack of as you say, stylishness.’

And I did so want to kiss her. To put my lips on her soft smooth skin. O god I was nearly dying to. Utterly mad to. And to undo that belt around her waist. And then replace it with my arms squeezing her tight. Her slight aloofness these past few days was most irritating. Not to say inciting to sheer blatant lust. And I felt she might be heeding the attentions of other men. Some perhaps as odious as the agent with whom she admitted she sat for more than just the cursory moment in the parlour.

‘Are you not going to allow me to touch you.’

‘No.’

‘Why.’

‘It is that time of the month when ladies don’t.’

‘But you would otherwise.’

‘Ah, who knows.’

‘Are you no longer in love with me.’

‘Love. My god. Love.’

‘Yes. Love. Or are you now frightened that we may be spied upon.’

‘Love. That is such a silly word.’

‘Why.’

‘Because love is a future and what future is there. For me. For you. Ladies must think always of the future. Her beauty is her future. It is that which makes men want you. When it is gone all is but beautiful memories. You must then have things which replace the attentions of men. It is most important.’

‘Like doing embroidery you mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘You will always be beautiful. My mother was. And I could hire you forever. Then you could go and sit with Edna Annie down in the laundry and do embroidery. It’s warm there mostly.’

‘You want a sock in the jaw.’

‘No please.’

‘Anyway you would not want me around forever, I assure you. As every little lady in the countryside is beaucoup busy counting your acres, your horses and grooms. Even already I notice how they are riding at your back at every hunt. Keeping close and following you like the hounds do the fox. Just waiting for the moment when she can toss her head and attract your eye and procure you.’

‘Your English madam has improved marvellously but procure, I think is hardly the word.’

‘Ah perhaps the word is then conquer, snare, make a grab. Catch you. I practise my English. But two hours every day is not enough. And I will need to be expert to find another job.’