These
Damnably difficult
Women
16
‘Shall I remove this setting Master Reginald.’
‘No Crooks.’
‘It’s a grand roast of beef, Master Reginald, fetched this evening by urgent bicycle from the butcher’s for your delectation.’
‘That’s most agreeable Crooks.’
‘And done to a rare turn.’
‘Most agreeable.’
Candelabra and sconces all lit. The fire roaring up the chimney. The wine crystal sparkling. Darcy Dancer seated end of the gleamingly polished mahogany. The chill blue colours of the onion pattern Meissen. Norah lugging in the covered dishes. Set by the hearth on the brass warming table. Crooks pouring my glass full of deep red softly fuming claret. A nice cool crack of breeze coming up between these two floor boards. Always means that less than arctic conditions are prevailing in the dining room.
Deliberately I delayed each course. Hoping Miss von B would reappear. Till Norah trying to catch her breath said that her Royal Highness was taking supper in her room. Somewhat mournfully I awaited Crooks to pour my lonely enjoyed Chateau d’Yquem. Knowing that madam especially would appreciate the noble rot of its rich textured pale goldenness softly sliding down the side of the glass rim and its musky heady scents wafting up the nostrils. And instead now she would I suppose, following her supper, be somewhere perusing another anti Catholic volume in the household. In her pale purple gown. By the library fire, or her legs wrapped in a rug in the chillier drawing room or parlour. Or perhaps even freezing her tits off waltzing by herself in the ballroom. As indeed I noticed before she slapped me that she was rather thinly covered there. And the welcome bosom swelling sight of her, did I thought, even make me feel a little dizzy, before as well as after her striking me. And I do indeed feel that way right now.
‘Master Reginald, is there something wrong.’
‘Well as a matter of fact Crooks I think I may be feeling rather heady.’
‘It’s that d’Yquem, the great accumulated golden overtones from sublime sauterne, would, with enough of it, put your brains pleasantly swirling. Sure it’s the very mummified death of the grape you’re drinking there.’
‘Well I do believe my brain is, as a matter of fact swirling, or else the table is swaying.’
‘Now would I fetch up a bit of our best brandy, it would bring you around in no time. There’s a bottle in the cellar lain there since the middle ages for just such a moment as this.’
‘I think, thank you Crooks, that I shall make do with d’Yquem. O god.’
‘Good lord save us, Master Reginald.’
Darcy Dancer pitching forward. Face banging the table. To slowly keel over sidewards and fall to the floor with a room shaking thud.
‘Master Reginald, can you hear me. Can you hear me. Are you all right. Norah, fetch Miss von B.’
Crooks walking stumbling upwards backwards, his hands caught under each arm of Darcy Dancer. Could feel his big fingernails digging into me. Hear all their voices. Out there beyond me in the dark. Even thought in my unconsciousness that a rake of an ancestor on the staircase wall winked at me. Miss von B in a big grey sweater over her gown. Had me by a leg. And Norah with her lace cap knocked askew, her hair loose was carrying the other. Could smell her rather strongly. Mixed with the clean sweet scent of Miss von B. But as the direction of the hall breeze changed, both ladies’ essences were promptly drowned by the close up smell of Crooks. As he grunted, huffed and puffed shifting me up the beech grove stairs. And along the hall to my room. Backing through the door and loading me all black attired and silk shirted, flat out on my bed.
‘Now ladies perhaps a gent should undress the poor young master. Leave it to a gent.’
‘Crooks I am perfectly capable of undressing Master Darcy.’
‘Ah well, would it be right and proper.’
‘I am in fact quite a very capable nurse.’
‘Very good then madam. Far be it for me to interfere.’
‘Norah fetch me a hot bowl of water. And a thermometer.’
‘What is a thermometer madam.’
‘O dear then get hot bottles for the bed. And towels to wrap them in. And build a fire.’
‘Very good madam. But is he dead.’
‘No. But he will be if you do not quickly attend to what you have been asked.’
‘O dear god, he was such a nice poor lad.’
Gales outside the bedroom window. Darcy Dancer’s black black hair aswirl on the pillow. Some strands still entwined. From his cross country adventure. Miss von B leaning over with a cool compress. Touching it upon the fevered brow and the hot burning cheeks. Feel the touches one feels. Outside one’s head. And inside like a big hand ahold of one’s whole brain. Lifting me away out of my body. I was up there on top of spy glass hill. And it was summer again and Crooks had put together a picnic to have by the lake. And as I watched his old bent figure pack it on the float I felt somehow that that dear old strange fellow had not betrayed me.
Three days Darcy Dancer lay abed. In feverish semi consciousness. The gales blowing. Baskets of turf fetched to burn to keep the sparks from flying. Miss von B the morning after the collapse in the dining room, brought the doctor. Driving my mother’s phaeton with Petunia like a whirlwind it was said, out and back along the drive. And he came then each morning smiling with his little case and stethoscope. Making cheery quips to Norah and Miss von B while he made me, half awake, roll my eyes, and cough with his stethoscope over my chest. A wooden stick pressed down my tongue as he looked down my throat by torch light. And late afternoon of that third day I saw Miss von B’s anxious face. And Norah at her shoulder. My head felt so tight. My lungs full of rumbling and trying to catch my breath. Norah’s hands entwined. And her eyes looking up to heaven as she mumblingly prayed and then whispered.
‘The poor lad’s dying isn’t he. He’s dying. Jesus Mary and Joseph. The poor lad’s dying.’
Till I drifted off. And then heard whispers.
‘It’s the crisis now. It’s the crisis.’
The tower bell rang. I thought all had been summoned to my room for tea. As I lay hot and swirling in dreams. Down at the foot of my bed. All hovering. As each now comes in. One by one. I’m dying. Sexton there. His head looming over the others. He had placed on my dresser a plaster statue of his Blessed Virgin, a special candle burning in a red glass in front of her. My sisters. Where are they. They loved me. There. That must be Beatrice Blossom in the corner of the room. And then it was Catherine the cook. Her one big old hand wiping itself across her apron, and a big ladle held in her other. Shaking her head sadly back and forth. I’m dying. Going down under the waves of sleep. Head Groom Slattery. Foxy furtively behind his shoulder. A smile ready to burst out on his face. Thought his eyes were looking around the room for something to rob. Now they were all filing in. As the first who came walked out. I’m already dead. They’re just viewing the body. The silver hair of Edna Annie. Eyes sunk so deep in her head. Her great ancient purple veins under her parchment flesh. Yet soft as her bony hand touches against my cheek. Her words. Ah god love the little man put so soon out there now to rest under the lonely sky. Long before his time. Sure god in his mercy to a good little Protestant gentleman like that will give him the peace to die a good christian. Luke the groom. His ear now well healed but badly bent over at the scar where Foxy had nearly bitten it off. Norah and Sheila brushing at their uniforms and too terrified to come closer. My mother’s two friends the clerics. So elegantly so darkly approaching. Both blessing me with prayers. Edna Annie feeling her rosary beads through her hands saying the two parsons assembled together should do a power of good in heaven even with the unfortunate blasphemy of one being an Episcopalian. And voices. Please now. Time to go. Ah one last look. While he lives. Darcy Dancer. And Uncle Willie. The only one with tears in his eyes. And Miss von B stood there on the bedroom carpet. With all the other dark shadows gone. Her body all golden. Her belly softly round. Bosoms swelling full and fruity. Her arms raised from her sides. To welcome me into her embrace. And as I moved towards her I was walking on a road. Out there way beyond west of Thormondstown. Bordered by shrubbery trees. Marching with an ash plant through the boggy lands of the countryside. A cottage thatch ahead at the end of a path. An old woman in her shawl approaching. A farm labourer in his loose black old coat leaning by the side of the fence. Who doffed his cap to me. And I said, with no one in particular in mind to say it to. To hear me. And understand. That I am a member, perhaps presently in poor standing, of the landed gentry. I really am. And that I am possessed still, of all my gentility. Despite the depredations to my estates. And would not soon nor never be descending to the very last resort. That poor common dreadful state of being native. In rags, penury and ignorance. With big dirty fingernails. And clumsy boorish mind. And that still, the country women curtsy and the men remove their caps. As I pass by and go further. And there on the road ahead. Miss von B. A true real aristocrat. Glittering in diamonds. Her body waiting. Getting closer. Our nakednesses nearly in embrace. My arms widening to weave around her. And squeeze and squeeze. Nothing is there.