‘Please may I at least as a possible peacemaker return your hat and help you to your feet.’
‘As for you, leave my hat alone and get your hands away from me you wretched damn tutor to those land stealing Kildares.’
On the edge of this barren bog. And on the inclining side of this rushy meadow, some yellow little gorse blossoms opened by the sun. The sweet of their coconut scent lost on this crisp air. Through which this girl’s two eyes were blazing hatred. Making me feel as if great welts were blotching all over my skin. And Mr Arland, poor Mr Arland, my noble kind tutor, who froze in his tracks. And stood there dumbly. And then slowly took back his outstretched hand and put back his opera hat on his head. And as someone had now led back and held Baptista’s recaptured horse and she unravelled a stirrup, I could in the clear winter light see the sparkle of moisture in Mr Arland’s eyes. And his voice was something I heard in me saying.
O god
I’m hurt
9
The weather stayed cold crisp and sunny an entire fortnight. With mornings of frost whitened meadows. I was getting used now to being squire of Andromeda Park. And that my father would not suddenly enter the door and thereupon I would have to hurriedly stand. With Crooks indisposed with severe gout, I enjoyed to walk the corridors listening to the sound of my heels striking the floors. Sheila or Norah stopping momentarily in their work to address me with the time of day. My only childish action was whenever I heard the haunting squeal of swan wings. I’d rush to the window to watch these great white birds cruise across the sky, all their strength and power whistling just above the trees of the front lawn. And the sight filled me with loneliness and a feeling I would like to be gone somewhere far away.
And then on a grey rainy cold morning, the mailman came urgently on his bicycle with a special letter. My father from whom no one had heard except that when after more cattle and fields were sold, money orders arrived to pay the servants and men, was now writing to tell Mr Arland that I must attend a young gentlemen’s school close to Dublin, and that his services upon my gaining entry would no longer be required. Although I was furious and Mr Arland was extremely sad at the news, he counselled me that I should go. And when he complained he could not sleep these recent nights over the pub, I invited him to take a room at Andromeda Park.
Three weeks later we departed just before lunch, bundled up and wrapped in scarves. Miss von B as she stood tweedily attired in the hall making sure again and again that I had all my necessities and that I was smart looking, held her fists clenched at her sides and her lips drawn tight as if she were about to cry. Outside on the steps Sexton presented himself to say goodbye, giving us four winter stored apples he had brightly polished. I could sniff the usual smell of soot and motor oil on his hair and I perceived moisture in his eye as he touched his patch and seemed overly hearty expressing his words.
‘Up there in the roaring metropolis you’ll soon be getting Latin aplenty Master Darcy sine dubio. And Mr Arland, what harm was there in our little differences. God bless the both of you now and safe journey.’
Our bags followed on a float driven by Luke and Foxy’s father. And Mr Arland in his naval great coat sitting high in the governess’s cart was chewing the last of the apples as we arrived at the faded grey station. Standing lonely and bereft as it did down at the end of the tree lined drive, its apron of gravel surrounded with its neatly tilled flower beds. Its large clock suspended over the platform was said to have the most accurate time in the county. That is if anyone had the correct time to compare it to.
Although we’d learned earlier by the crossroads telephone that the train for certain had left the previous town, we waited two hours. And every time Mr Arland opened his coat and pushed into his waistcoat pocket for the silver box to take a liberal pinch of snuff, he would also take from his baggy grey suit, his big gold watch to regard the hour. And with his battered briefcase resting against his ankle, he would peer up at the station timepiece.
‘Good lord that damn clock is losing a minute every ten minutes and it was made in Leicester.’
And when finally we first heard and then saw the puffing engine rounding the bend between the hills, there was a great self important flurry from the platform porter. And the Station Master with his whistle and green flag kept shouting.
‘All aboard now, don’t keep the train waiting.’
The man sitting on a box of pigeons stood up and spat into the stones between the tracks. Another sitting on a crated squealing pig, dragged it along the platform. Then a gentleman lugging a suitcase perforated with holes and full of squawking chickens said to these other two owners that their livestock could just as soon be dead cooked and eaten after themselves were already killed with the waiting, and then he pointed towards the locomotive and then announced.
‘Sure that yoke would be flying if it only had a bit of coal.’
There were faces I recognized from the town. The bald headed and dour demeanoured owner of the drapery shop who was rumoured to be buying some of our land. And others whom I saw look at me and then lean over and make whispers in each other’s ears. Quite disrespectful and most uncomfortable making. Especially with some of the monstrous bills we owed. But one elderly gentleman, who said he served my grandfather for forty years in the stables of Andromeda Park, had the courtesy to salute us and hold open the train door as we boarded. And with turf being flung into the boilers we made eastwards at a steady pace along the banks of the canal and between the stretching dark bog lands, stopping at the little stations to collect the patiently waiting passengers some of whose faces were blue with cold.
With my sleeve I wiped clear the steam of my breath collecting on the window. Out in the gathering darkness all one could see were shadows and sometimes a lonely light. My feet growing cold, I daydreamed of von B. Mostly of her body. And just as we finished eating our buttery ham thick sandwiches a priest came in to our compartment and regarded me out of the corner of his eye. In some strange way I seemed to irritate him. Perhaps upsetting him with my lascivious thoughts. He would squiggle up his nose and frown and make nasty faces. And especially so when I took out and wrote in my recently begun blue leather diary. I had found it in back of one of the cupboards of medical instruments with its pages empty and under another diary my mother’s father had kept and in which I found great interest to read. I carried both and mine was locked with a silver tiny clip. And because this could easily be broken open I thought it would be prudent on the frontis page to write.
Herein lies the truth of The Daring Dancer’s activities and a curse shall be on him and his heirs who shall open without my warrant and peruse these pages.
The click clack of the train slowing as we made another stop. Then the mournful whistle wailing as we approached road crossings. A gentleman entered in a stiff wing collar, and sat with the priest across from us. His red glowing face lit by the ceiling light. And perhaps many whiskeys. By the cut of his jib not to mention cutaway coat, striped trousers and black gartered socks, he appeared to be of the legal profession. And from time to time he regards Mr Arland who only lifts his head up from his book to try to read the name as we pull into yet another tiny station.
The legal gentleman seemed to entirely approve of me and once smiled as I wrote in my diary. Which really alarmed me to blushing because I was writing that last night I had four emissions with H.R.H. which initials I used to refer to Miss von B. We stopped at sidings along the great bog to load turf into the tender from the great stacks by the track. And I detected a certain smugness in the legal gentleman who cleared his throat as the conductor who was coming by the carriages asking for the lend of a hand, but who when looking into our window, instead saluted from his cap. Then the legal gent spoke for the first and last time, giving us a flash of his best French.