J. Donleavy - The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

‘Get a move on there’s fifteen mares waiting yet.’

My hair and the passing days growing longer. The weather milder. And dust rising in the sunlight forking over the straw. Carrying armfuls of hay. My red chapped hand churning in pails of crushed oats and water. Lugging buckets of warm bran. And the pleasant moments grooming a big old mare who would stretch her head to each side and snort in ecstasy as I brushed her down. And Matt growling when he could find nothing to complain of concerning my work.

‘What are you doing standing there, haven’t you something to do.’

Felt like shoving my fork up his mean arse. Never a complimentary word from his lips. At night, even as I sat on my bed, I hardly had the strength to pull up the covers. And was already asleep as I slowly lowered my stiff limbs back. Aching in every bone. By days waiting in the basement hall outside the big kitchen of this house, holding cap in hand. Murmuring me country accents. Begorra, bedad, and humbly bending me head. To take my breakfast of porridge oats, tea, bread and dripping. Lunch of bacon potatoes and cabbage. Sitting at the most inferior position of the table to eat. With the other household servants who suspiciously regarded me when I did not bless myself at the sound of the Angelus. With the cook mumbling.

‘What have we now, a pagan in our midst.’

Looking up and seeing them all stare. And the cook once correcting me for my table manners. God what bloody inglorious moments. To find servants more full of snobberies than one is oneself. The maids all so self importantly jumping at the dingling sound of their assigned bells, rushing to a grey swing door at the top of the stairs as if it led to heaven. And one called Assumpta looking back over her shoulder at me all snooty and superior.

‘Don’t you wish now you could come up here.’

But matters distinctly worsened. An officious overbearing butler appropriately called Smears arrived. Who pranced about in a military manner reeling off his previous service in previous castles to previous Earls. And who straight off presided at the head of the table as if he were conducting a symphony. Keeping a long silver skewer by his plate which he tapped for our attention.

‘So that lunch may begin, are we all now fully gathered. And you what’s your name again. I have difficulty remembering common ones.’

‘O’Reilly. Dancer O’Reilly.’

‘Do please do me the honour if not the pleasure of sitting straight and take your elbows off the table. Although you have brought in the smell of them you are not out in the stables now. And you, young lady what’s your name.’

‘Assumpta.’

‘You are not to exhibit amusement when I bring another member of the staff to order. Clearly there must be severe changes wrought here. Standards are distinctly slack.’

Five thirty in the morning I started. And the clock bell was tolling eight in the evening when my work was done. With hardly a second through the day when someone didn’t have something unpleasantly new for me to do. Saddling and unsaddling. Cleaning tack. Hands now swollen red. Weals across my palms. Cut and blistered by bucket handles. Tumbling in under the blankets and merely a minute later it seemed tomorrow. Never again shall I treat the servants of Andromeda Park in a thoughtless and uncaring manner. Or attempt, as one was inclined to do in particularly shabby ways, to extract from them every last ounce of their daily energy. Not indeed that one could. For if they so wished they could be so jolly clever at avoiding work. Indeed one knew a servant’s trick or two oneself.

‘Now that I’ve got you all lined up. Who for the last time, thieved those five bananas.’

The mistress of the house in her persistent stingy mindedness was trying to keep track of every potato and turnip. Not to mention every biscuit and jar of jam. And she finally confronted us as well. But as I was usually out in the yard she seemed to think me unworthy of an accusation. And it was I indeed who did neatly thieve the bananas arrived one morning with peaches and black grapes in a great wicker basket from Smith’s of the Green. Later the cook was screaming at Assumpta, who also ruddy liar that she was, had stolen the remaining two herself. While trying to blame everyone else for the disappearance of the entire five. And Smears now went up and down the servants’ hall reciting.

‘I ain’t got no bananas.’

And one morning I was sent for to be given the embarrassing task of lugging baskets full of turf to drawing rooms and bedrooms. Which at first I at least found preferable to having to use a pick to clear away embedded big stones fallen from a wall in a paddock. Or collecting in from a field each day two mares who in their furious hatred of each other nearly kicked themselves as well as me to death. And I was surprised I was quite perversely enjoying dropping turf mould over the carpets as I went galumphing about. Till a bedroom door opened. And the mistress of the house stood there with a hair curling iron in one hand and holding her dressing gown closed in the other, promptly throwing a fit.

‘You. It’s you is it. Dropping turf all over. And in muddy shoes. You’re not to come traipsing through this house in muddy shoes.’

Only for a second or two did one worry about being sacked. One’s wages being hardly more than those of a slave. I was however momentarily mortified. But then clearly realized she simply lacked breeding and style to deal properly with servants. To first kindly approach smiling making some comments about the weather, and then to inquire after one’s health following which, and then only purely as an indifferent careless afterthought, to mention mud on one’s shoes. No damn ruddy wonder poor Irish peasants burned down so many of the sham gentry’s mansions. And left standing those belonging to the pure and true aristocracy.

‘And see that your hair is combed when next you come indoors. We’re not in the habit of tolerating scruffiness here you know.’

My god was I dying to let her have a piece of my mind. But instead pressed on choice wall areas a few blatant grubby hand prints so disliked by Miss von B. These regrettable people were not only known by a most common surname but were also glaringly nouveau riche. And even to be called upon to apply such a term makes one wince. I was of course supplied by Smears with an old pair of shabby slippers to wear. And another morning lugging in the turf baskets to the drawing room, I so longed to just flop down on the sofa. Not only from fatigue but with the persistent irritation of never being able to loiter and leisurely study the vulgarity of this house. With the ruddy grand piano covered with pictures of about a dozen priests and two dozen nuns, interspersed with photographs of what must be their son and daughter on their horses. The furnishings all so clearly contrived to give an appearance of expense. And just as one might have expected, there prominently displayed on a side table, was a copy of the most recent Tatler and Sketch. I picked it up. Thumbed the pages filled with photographs of recent hunt balls and other grand and fine happenings. And my god, there they all were. With their toothsome grins and tiaras. Assembled in the great castle hall through which I passed on my way to the Count’s dancing lessons. The Master of Foxhounds. Baptista Consuelo. The Mental Marquis. The amputating Vet. The Randy Major. The Slasher sisters. Even three of the bunch of flowers, Rose, Pansy and Marigold. Across whose elegant velvet lawns I wreaked such great hoof steps. The whole hunt. And sundry other layabouts, all having such a radiantly wonderful white tie time. And one particularly large laughing picture of the Mental Marquis and Baptista, captioned.

TWO HUNT MEMBERS TOGETHER EXCHANGING A JOKE