And choo choo choo. The locomotive shuffle he said.
"Mr. B, that's your friend Beefy, wherever did he get those clothes."
Beefy went choo choo choo. Out on to the drawing room dance floor and back again into the dining room. Followed by a flushed hostess. Who put her hands up to her eyes and face.
As Beefy climbed up on the dining table. Hurrying hands clearing his way of drinks and saumon fume. His boots carving swirling ruts on the dark red gleaming mahogany.
Amid claps and laughter and our hostess's dismay.
"O poor Philippa, I fear her party is about to end on a rather expensive note."
Beefy capered. The gathering laughed. Some doubled up and clapped. And the band tippled. Miss Fitzdare on her pleasant slender legs, took her leave. Followed by me. Said she had not far to go. Just down the road. I said no I must see you out and home. And with coats donned in the cool hall.
And the gay stamping noise left behind. Here with all the hats and canes. The silver salver for calling cards. Architectural prints of Dublin city. And our hostess. Face alarmed and creased with an ever friendly frown. Shaking hands goodbye.
Outside on the dark roadway covered over with arching trembling branches. Balthazar tripping down the steps. Between the white globes of light and on the pebbles underfoot. His arm held by Miss Fitzdare. Her warm understanding smile. The moisty night lies out around us. From Ailesbury Road all the way across a green Kildare. To the Curragh stretched flat as a moonlit land. Where horses apounding go. And with me. To England, perhaps, Miss Fitzdare might you come. To my little house there. Where we would be and no one else would know.
"Balthazar. Balthazar. Can you see."
"I think so."
"You'd better hold my arm."
To feel close to her. Through our respective thick woollen garments. All those weeks she sat so untouchable. Distantly far away. In her own world huddled over her drawing of plasmodium. I watched the tip top of her pencil moving back and forth on the drawing paper. And mine an empty whiteness. Save where my pencil had wandered. Making round faces of little men, some who smiled and others who were awfully sad with their ears very small.
"I never thought we would meet like this Mr. B."
"Nor I, Miss Fitzdare."
By a high iron fence Balthazar paused, swayed and leaned against the black spokes. Slowly he slid down and down. Miss Fitzdare holding him by the arm as he sank to his knees and looked up at her face and into her cool blue eyes. A gleam of silk flowing with colour between her black lapels. Balthazar shaking his head and pulling himself up again. Looking round at this large stone entrance.
"Balthazar you cannot be left alone."
"I'm absolutely tops. Down for a moment. But up now.
Very tops."
"You're not tops. You're squiffy."
"I'm tops not squiffy."
"Dear you've no transport back."
"Never squiffy. Not that. Tops."
"I could put you up for the night."
"Miss Fitzdare I could never never impose. I mean Fm topping. You think it's shocking that I say I'm topping."
"No. But we should go back and find you a lift. Or I may be able to call a taxi out from Dublin. You'll catch your death on the road."
"Would you care Miss Fitzdare if I died."
"Of course I would."
"My uncle was a great explorer. At the drop of a barometer.
He went immediately to one of the poles. It's in my family. I will make it back safely to my rooms."
"I hope so."
"Miss Fitzdare do you really know me. How can you be certain I am not some mustachioed man, with the ends waxed and twirled. And that now I have cut off my mustache. You don't know that."
"I know you're squiffy."
"How do you know I'm not a dashy dandy."
"You're anything but."
"I'm just so so ordinary."
"Mr. B are you fishing for compliments."
"But do you know me from within. Miss Fitzdare. My little shortcomings, my little heartfelt troubles, my yearnings."
"No but I know you're a very nice person."
"How can you know that Miss Fitzdare."
"I do. From your eyes. You are a nice person."
"Where Miss Fitzdare have you been all these months.
Why haven't we spoken before."
"You never troubled to look at me I fear."
"You must not say that Miss—"
"My God don't fall."
"Ah I am down."
"O dear. I've got you. Up up you come."
"Down and down. I go. But I love you Miss Fitzdare. I have no friends in Ireland. Nowhere to go. Sit at my fireside night after night.' "But I thought you were so very popular Mr. B. I'm sorry I had no idea."
"No I am not popular. I am down for the count.' "Dear me. You must not fall again. The grass is wet. You'll catch cold."
"I want to catch you Miss Fitzdare."
Miss Fitzdare shyly turning away. Her black gloved hand reaching to tuck upon the silk at her throat. A wind casting a lock of her dark hair in gleaming stray strands across her so white temples. Somewhere behind the hurrying cloud a moon basks. And it feels that my fingers clutch and haul me on the sands from an eastern chilly sea.
"Is this where you live Miss Fitzdare."
"Yes. It's my uncle's house."
"It's very nice what I can see of it."
"You know I'm really worried to let you go."
"Can I tell you Miss Fitzdare that I don't know what I'm doing in this country at all. They wrote in such a friendly welcoming fashion. That I just packed up. Got on the train to be here by October first. They never told me I would be cold and lonely and friendless all these months."
"You know you say this. And each time I wonder if you're having me on. Dear you're sliding down again. You must get up. There's a couch you could sleep on over the stable."
"Ah once more you think I am your horse, Miss Fitzdare."
"Heavens. Really I don't."
"Ah Miss Fitzdare why not. Saddle me up. Hear me I'm munching the grass."
"Please get up."
"I have been too careful for too long. It is only this evening, the first time I have ever stepped forth from my rooms and went in public without my gloves. I make my servant laugh.
We have chats. Ah no Miss Fitzdare, I have been careful far too long. I will not take advantage of your extreme kindness.
By the stars I will find a way through these raging suburban jungles back to Dublin."
"There are no stars.'
"I will feel my way through the laurels. Please don't let me keep you from your bed you have already been far too kind to me. I am not popular. That is certain. Today I dined with a mother, her three daughters and a doctor guest in Rathgar. Refined members of society. I a poor Frenchman who does not know what it's all about. They sit and I sit. We make remarks about the weather, the races. I am asked will I have more trifle. I say that is most kind of you. But then I say whoops that perhaps my remark that it is most kind, is wrong, that I have trodden too heavily in the etiquette, should have just said please and thank you. And not that I should be too delighted to have more trifle. In such dilemmas I perspire heavily. Sometimes I am so nervous that I cannot take my leave till midnight, all of us sitting and beginning to shiver around a dying fire. I never know what to say to get myself out of the house. I never know how to refuse when they say do please, come next Sunday. I am to put it mildly Miss Fitzdare in an awful rut.'
"O but that's awful for you."
"Yes, I know."
"Can't you refuse."
"There is something wrong with me Miss Fitzdare. I do not know how to be unkind. I can suffer unkindnesses but I cannot be unkind. Again and again each Sunday I go back to Rathgar and we all sit on the settee. And the daughters change their frocks, one wears the frock the other wore the week before."