‘What for heaven’s sake Sexton are they saying.’
‘That she was compromised. Compromised I’m telling you. Besmirched.’
‘Dear me. What a dastardly business. But how. How could anyone compromise such an elegant young lady, Sexton.’
‘Well in not more than two dozen words now. I’ll tell you how. Didn’t the entire hunt chasing this rascal come upon her and that Mental Marquis. In the middle of the lime avenue. With every last horse having to jump the pair of them stark naked together entwined on the grass. That’s what they’re saying. With the hounds, the fox, the huntsman, whipper in, and the Master looking for his horse, all thundering over them. Ah god I hate to have to use such an expression but next they’ll be saying that the fox ran up the poor girl’s hole.’
‘O dear what a bother isn’t it Sexton.’
‘Well let me tell you Master Darcy if a one of them comes repeating that story to my face they’ll get a fist in the gob for their trouble. Ruining the girl’s pure virgin name, that’s what the gossipy swine are doing. Tongues never still. Wagging and wagging. In one shopkeeper’s ear and out to a dozen others. And in a thrice don’t they have the whole story all over Ireland.’
Under the sheets to muffle my sounds I did laugh rather heartily the moment Sexton stepped back out again into the hall. Indeed I nearly kicked the bottom of the bed out. And finally did. With Miss von B bringing me beef tea, tucking it all back in again. Although kindly she was continuing to be distant. I did dizzily recall the intimacy of her rolling me over upon my stomach and intruding a cold thermometer into where I thought it was quite indiscreet in front of Norah. But Miss von B as I groaned my reluctance insisted that it was the only proper place to take a temperature. It seemed a long time before she pulled it out again, reading it in front of the wall sconces brought up from the dining room. One admired her lack of squeamishness. For two more days when I wasn’t feeling like an overly cosseted baby, I felt like a long piece of overly boiled cabbage. As the household rallied about leaving me with little peace. In with breakfast. Out with lunch. Back with tea. And flowers and visitors and tidbits in between. But there are times when it requires just too much energy to protest.
Saturday morning. With a red dawn and this day growing crisp and sunny. In a long mauve dressing gown with chocolate brown borders and facings, Darcy Dancer sitting by his fire. Sporting these, my mother’s racing colours. While suitably and contentedly reading Priests and People in Ireland. Of the low morality rampant in the Mecklenburg Street area of Dublin. Ladies of ill fame. Children kidnapped into vice. And in which volume it frequently appeared that Catholics did behave quite disgracefully. Of course one is always glad to be Protestant. But there are times when one is extremely glad. However I read with much interest of the Discalced Carmelites and how these gentlemen had established an oratory in honour of the divine child, Jesus of Prague, in whose devotion wonderful graces might be obtained. And I must confess, just for the novelty of it I prayed as one heard Sexton praying, to this Jesus of Prague to bring me back my strength. As every time I went now to pee or move my bowels, my legs were deucedly weak under me. And while I sat absorbed earnestly praying I heard the floor board squeak. And perceived from an eye. Miss von B at the door ajar. As she peeked in.
‘Please. Madam. Please. Come in.’
Miss von B in her brown hunting coat and white breeches. One gloved hand holding the glove of the other. The blonde buns of hair caught by a net either side of her head. And the red mark of her bowler striped across her brow. Her cheeks ruddy. Her riding boots black and so gleaming. Her bosoms swell up beneath her dark brown sweater and a gold pin stuck in the silk stock at her throat.
‘Ah I do not want to disturb you. Each time I come. There is already someone here. How are you.’
‘I am feeling immeasurably improved today. Thank you. You have been out exercising.’
‘Yes. We went a long ride around the lake. We were lost but behind Kern and Olav I found my way again. And I am pleased to see you so much better.’
‘I shall be up and about by Monday.’
‘No. You must not. I do not think the doctor would allow that.’
‘I must. To stop them taking away our trees.’
‘You are still so thin, pale. You take too much responsibility. What matter a few trees. There are thousand and thousand.’
‘I want nothing further to leave this place, not a branch, piece of straw or blade of grass.’
‘And of course, what does it matter if they take a few bits of wood. They pay something. It would be more important if they pay nothing and they take your cattle, your land, or even the beauty from your face.’
‘They are indeed madam already taking these things. And more often than not, paying nothing.’
‘Ah my poor darling. There is but one thing that is important, that no one can ever take your good manners from you.’
‘Miss von B. I thank you for saying that. Undeserved as I fear it may be. And especially in the light of my recent life. I do appreciate it. I think I am at a cross roads. And which way I turn may indeed be the direction of my whole destiny.’
‘Ah you are far too young to speak so. Life it comes. Bang. It knock you a little this way. Bang. It knock you a little bit the other way. And the direction you go. Well you are lucky if it is not backwards.’
‘Or bang, it could madam, flatten one altogether.’
‘Yes, it does do that too. But then we must get up again.’
‘I am going to get up and go away from here.’
‘Come come. In this house, as I say so often to you, this is where your life will be. You are sitting reading, so comfortably your book. Where it tell you how to bribe a saint and about the sin, priests and beggars everywhere. What could make a good Protestant gentleman happier. And you can as you will do, read just like that into your old age.’
‘My father will come. We shall argue. I know.’
‘How do you know he will come. When he did not come when I. Ah perhaps I should not say.’
‘Say what.’
‘O please, let us forget. It was nothing.’
‘It is something. You said my father did not come. When I was dying. That’s what you meant.’
‘He may not have got the cable. Plus as you know, you did not die.’
‘Yes, plus, I do know. But he will. He will come as soon as I stop the agent from selling the trees.’
‘Too many rashers of bacon for you at breakfast, that is what the matter is. You are getting your oats. Feeling them I mean. With your appetite back.’
‘I am I must admit rather deeply at this moment feeling my oats. And further for a long time now I have in fact been thinking. That things may not remain the same as one had expected they might. Especially now that Mr Arland has left.’
‘I did myself too become much fond of Mr Arland.’
‘O dear, I do desperately miss him. We did have some rather nice evenings together. One does not want to be unseemly and sentimental. But I cannot imagine my future here now. Andromeda Park is rather just a big old rambling monument to antiquity. And I do believe I’ve outgrown it.’
‘Come come. What is this. First no one is to take away a blade of grass. And now you speak of going away. And leave altogether. Ah I think you are just a little low after your sickness.’
‘The best part of my indisposition I suppose has been that you are now speaking friendly to me again. And that madam, is making me distinctly more content.’
‘Ah little man sometimes you are so sweet.’
‘Why madam do you stay here.’
‘Because there is plenty to eat.’
‘I see.’
‘Ah but I am half joking of course. I stay because I like it. At first I did not like you. But now I like you. And I like to live in the country. It is somewhere very pleasant. When you have nowhere. Of course I miss the mountains. The snow. The skiing. The crisp cold air. And the white everywhere. But then here there is the hunting. And such beauty over the fields. The crazy people who hunt. Who give me-a laugh. Like imbeciles when the fox run out, they all shout and scream which way he went. So I shout too.’