J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘Her Royal Highness, Crooks.’

‘Thank you, master Reginald.’

In a double edition of my woollies that Crooks laid out I dressed rather rapidly to be about my business. But I did indeed recall that evening of aria. Prior to dinner and just before drinks were to be served in the library. I thought at first it was a new lease of life that my father’s gramophone had taken on. Till I realized the sound was coming from the ballroom. To whose door I tiptoed thinking, o god who now has gone bonkers. And pushing the door ajar I saw Miss von B. In a long white flowing gown, a candlestick in her hand, her arms held out. In the centre of the ballroom floor. Her head held back and singing with such lyric feeling and compassion. Her whole marvellous body alight with such shimmering beauty that I began to shake and tremble. Goose pimples galore all over and my hair standing up on the back of my neck. Had to loose the door knob I held in my hand because it began to rattle too. There I stood in the darkness transfixed. And a little frightened as well. The candle light throwing shadows upwards across the side of her face. But of course I was rather shamed not only by my having an erection during such a culturally magic moment but also that I had spied in this manner on what was another’s most intimate reverie. And then she moved, the candle fluttering, to glide silently in circles till the candle blew out.

Darcy Dancer proceeding down the beech grove stairs. Rooks squawking out there in the tree tops. And with my grandfather’s best Purdey gun from the gunroom, I came round the corner in the half light out across the hall. Norah taking ashes from the grate. And jumping up in a fright. As I came upon her silently on the rug Miss von B had just resurrected from the attic floor hall. To then quickly regain her senses with a little smile and her usual little nod of her head. When you’re nearly dead it must make people become a little wide eyed to see you abroad alive again.

‘Good morning, you did give me a start there, Master Reginald. ‘Tis good to see you, sir.’

‘Good morning, thank you Norah. And how are you keeping.’

‘Middling sir, only middling.’

‘O well, that’s better than poorly, isn’t it.’

‘It is sir, yes.’

Rather disturbing enlargement one thought one noticed of Norah’s belly. Or else she is simply getting rapidly and deucedly fat. She has when one really looks, quite an extremely pretty face. Big brown eyes. Freckles on forehead nose and cheeks. Ample bosomed and trim strong legs. Which I must confess I have upon occasion turned to watch disappearing down a hall or ascending a stair. Good lord, I hope not yet another pregnancy in this house. That’s the trouble with wet weather. Causes so much hanging about getting up to mischiefs. If the remaining last of the useful servants start having babies it will be a damn nonsensical nuisance. With priests and nuns clammering about to find out who did it. And perhaps why. Will certainly not increase the household’s day to day agreeableness. Seems one hardly gets down the stairs and out the ruddy front door. Before more tribulations unfold.

Darcy Dancer on the front steps. Taking in deep cold sweet lungfuls of air. Kern and Olav happily pushing and shoving their big heads at me. Then growling in jealousy at each other. And pending parturition makes one distastefully recall. My father’s tufts of lighter hair high on his cheek bones. His chomping hunting boots, the crops and whips and horse equipages piled at the front entrance of the house. And the mysterious pregnancies that began to appear among the household staff. With suspicions forthrightly cast upon the grooms but whispers had it said it was my father. And a story going round the countryside that while he was out and about on his horse that he never hesitated inquiring after any likely girl he might see. For whom an immediate staff opening was provided at Andromeda Park. Then too there was the story of the pretty girl, the daughter of the gombeen man at a crossroads some miles away who sold groceries and various and sundry divers manufactured articles and one night my father aseat on his horse had watched her through the lighted window behind the counter of the shop and on a pretext that he was lost and needed directing in the dark he took her off into a wood the other side of the road. Her bald father later came to discuss with my father behind locked doors of the rent room. And was even once received in the north east parlour. And there were whispers about the consequences for years and that a little boy was growing up in Dublin who was a Kildare.

‘Ahoy there a moment Master Reginald.’

Sexton coasting around the rhododendrons on his bicycle. Wheels grinding over the pebbles. Like waiting for my breakfast tray in the morning to arrive from the kitchen. Hearing it coming and coming in the early silence. Along the halls, up stairs and then finally arriving with a knock on my door. As Sexton squeaks to a stop. On his two wheeled vehicle he said once belonged to a Protestant Bishop.

‘Ah you look alive and well. And doing some shooting Master Darcy.’

‘O just a bang or two at a few pigeon or snipe.’

‘Good day for it. Try over there in the little bit of bog the corner of the field the other side of spy glass hill. There’s always a bird or two lurking which later could nicely tickle the palate.’

Drops of moisture descending Sexton’s cheek from under his eye patch. He wipes them away with a big knuckle of his fist.

‘And are they Sexton, still up there in the oak plantation.’

‘O they’re still there. And will be at them trees. Till all fifty are gone. Sharpening that big cross cut saw every morning like a razor. And by evening they’d have it so dull it wouldn’t cut butter. Three horses pulling the logs out to the road and two pulling them into town. And the gombeen man ought to be taught a lesson. Sure didn’t one of the barbarians working for him come upon a pair of rare antique inkstands. Hidden innocent they were for years in an old walled up space in an architectural masterpiece of a mansion the land commission were knocking down in honour of the greater glory of peasant Ireland. O god weren’t they ormolu mounted of the most refined taste imaginable. In the true genuine regency style. And with the same sledge hammer this barbarian was using on the building, he smashed the innocent things to smithereens with a stupidity nulli secundus. You wouldn’t mind now if he even had the decency to avail of the dignity of a judge’s gavel to wreak his havoc on such sacred things. And the likes of that gombeen man who employs him wouldn’t know the difference between a Louis the Sixteenth style chaperone sofa and a cast iron bucket in the Adam style that he’d sit his own naturalistically coloured arse into. Forgive me using such words. But coarse doings call for coarse language. And down through the ages it’s the lovers of beauty are vilified and the wielders of violence are sanctified. Ah but it’s grand to see you there on the steps. In front of your own great house. And with your acres out there ready to take the tread of your boot and the air feel the shock of your gun.’

Sexton of course delayed me with his flowery rhetoric for some considerable time. Relaying his plans for the gardens in spring, and for the laying out and planting of masterly embellishments and vistas and grand ornamental flower beds. However he could finally sense that I was impatient to be off and touching me gently on the arm he smiled as he always did.

‘Ah I delay you and I must myself go about my business but now you go with the blessing of the Blessed Virgin Mother, and bag a few birds.’

Darcy Dancer crossing the frosty cobbles of the farmyard. Snorts and stampings in the stables. The whinnies of Molly and Petunia. Who smell me near. Luke mucking out. Forking up the big brown lumps of dung matted with yellow straw and shovelling it into his barrow. At least someone is working. But I suppose I shall have to spout a few hackneyed words to pass the time of day.