That evening it was said all over the household that a miracle had happened. That out of all the praying and right from the very sheer brink of death the very life of Darcy Dancer had been restored. The doctor came, ruddy cheeked and smiling as usual. To listen to lungs, spy down throats and read thermometers. And to say yes that the gentleman was indeed on the way to recovery. He came again next morning. Bright cheery and inquiring from Miss von B of the hunting. Said there was the greatest story ever told in years going round the countryside. And he was sorry she hadn’t yet heard it for it was not a story could be repeated by a gentleman to a lady.
Frost white out on the meadows. The air stilled under the sky once more after four days of blowing. Darcy Dancer sitting up clear eyed in bed. Sexton had brought bunches of tiny wild flowers he’d picked. And together with Miss von B placed and arranged them on my bedside and dresser tables. And then after my nourishing broth the next morning I even nipped out of bed to look out the window. At the sound of wheels over the pebbles. Luke the groom holding as Miss von B climbed in my mother’s phaeton, called the High Crane Neck for its elegant curvatures. She looked so smart in her tweeds and bowler seated there atop. And her blonde hair peeking swelling out in a bun over her ears as she delivered a light flick of the whip over Petunia’s quarters. To go off trotting away, perched so neatly upon the swan like springs. And indeed I had a little flutter of the heart. Till suddenly there were the boards creaking and there was Sexton himself standing at the foot of my bed. The great tall dark patched one eyed hulk of him. Cap under his arm. Hands joined in prayer. His hair greasier and blacker than ever. As if I were already this long time dead and he were praying for the repose of my immortal soul. And the Latin words mumbling out of him.
‘Good lord Sexton. Look at me. I’m alive. Here by the window.’
‘I was just praying in thanks for your safe deliverance from final darkness. Ah god Master Darcy, sine dubio it’s like the time you were rescued from the bog. That last afternoon there I thought we would be bringing you beyond to the sods. Or if there’s any suitable room left, be stacking you in with the rest of the Thormonds. And no sadness should that be, close with the unfaded beauty of your mother. Antoinette Delia Darcy Darcy. Wonderful woman. Ah god excuse me. Can’t stop a tear or two at the mention of her very name. But sure the whole lot of us in this house will all be going that way soon. So fast there won’t be them ones left to bury the others. How are you now.’
‘I am feeling much better thank you, Sexton. But surely one can’t say that you are exactly expostulating the most cheerful of views.’
‘Views born in the bitterness of life they are. But I’m glad to hear that you’re feeling better. It was as near a wake as ever I’ve seen. With the lot of them wailing down there in the kitchens you’d think you’d been already put cold out there under the meadow.’
‘That is in its way complimentary Sexton. They could have been laughing and rejoicing.’
‘Ah never Master Darcy. Sure like your mother they worship the ground you walk on. And speaking of walking I’m glad you’re up doing it. Because let me tell you. The sooner you’re about the estate the better. The depredations. The depredations would make you reel with consternation. That filthy little cur the agent. And there’ll be others in on it with him. The looting and banditry. What’s he doing but selling them fifty tall straight oaks. Planted by your great great grandfather and aged by the centuries. Majestic they are. Standing there in adoration of the great majesty above. Who gave them the ground in which to grow. The sacrilegiousness. It’s sickening. Never mind the tuppence ha’penny that shrewd snake in the grass says he’s not getting. O he’s getting it alright. And it will be more than tuppence ha’penny he’ll be keeping for himself. Be damned if it isn’t.’
‘You mustn’t upset yourself Sexton. It is making you unduly red in the face.’
‘Well I won’t stand idly by and stomach that vulgar treatment of nature’s beauty. Never mind the scurrilous wholesale robbery done thereby. I was up over there and told them there’d be repercussions. I told them. And six of them great majestic oaks down already. In the garden out there I can hear them up beyond, poor trees, screaming in agony on the ground.’
‘O Sexton, you do get distressed don’t you.’
‘Well Master Darcy, I’ve spent nearly all my years with the growing living things and the beauties of God. And sure in this country where treachery and deceit were invented, and where if the crowd of them could find any semblance of beauty not doing a soul any harm, they’d have an axe to it in an instant swinging it lashing in every blessed direction till not a sacred contour of its beauty was left.’
‘Well perhaps Sexton we can at least change to another mournful subject. Thunder and Lightning is no more.’
‘Pulverized he was by that mare. All his power beat out in seconds. In the hounds’ belly now, every bit but the biggest bones of him. And speaking about hounds. And mentioning hunts. Ah god there tells a story. Mournful and disgraceful enough too. Didn’t some tinker rascal who could jump a horse over the moon and thread four hooves through the eye of a needle, steal off with the master’s horse, over a parish or two there beyond. And the whole hunt after him. The cowards and all. Coming-out of their saddles, busting their heads on branches. And now rumour has it. And a filthy disgusting rumour it is too. That the entire lot of them pursuing the villain went cascading down that old lime avenue over there and other side of Thormondstown. The foul demeaning stories coming out of there. Slandering that lovely blue eyed beauty. Haven’t I said she’s a distant relation of the Thormonds. Haven’t I told you that.’
‘You’ve told me that, I believe Sexton.’
‘Well slurring her name they are. All over the countryside. Licking their lips. Whispering. Disseminating the most unspeakable of the unspeakable. I wouldn’t repeat it. Never never in a million years would I repeat it.’
‘Repeat what Sexton.’
‘What them rabble rousers of them mad bloody hatters, or cappers, or natters or whatever they call them bloody selves. Are saying.’