‘Of course madam that is quite incorrect. To point to the line the fox has taken you must put your horse in that direction, take off your hat and hold it out in front of you.’
‘But of course which of them could do that, each with a bottle of whiskey in them before breakfast they don’t know where they point.’
‘Please madam, come closer. I do like that coat on you. And you know don’t you that I have been very much wanting these days to put my arms around you. And hold you.’
‘Ah ha. How do you say, you are randy.’
‘That is not madam a ladylike term.’
‘Ah but it is what you are.’
‘Please don’t make light of my feelings. It’s not usually customary for me to express myself in this candid fashion concerning one’s deeper emotions. You wouldn’t would you, think it was disagreeable if I could just rest my head against your bosom.’
‘I will perhaps if you are a good boy, come back later tonight. And hold your hand.’
‘Now.’
‘No. Anyone could come in. Why do you take such a risk. When your father is suspicious already and you have run away from school.’
‘Well then we must do all we can do right now. Otherwise everything is going to be too late.’
‘Ah a relief to hear someone is in a rush. That is welcome for a change.’
‘Are you going to the next meet of the hunt.’
‘Yes.’
‘I shall join you.’
‘But you are not to do so. You are to stay as the doctor says, indoor for some time yet. And certainly not to hunt. So many are out who are all so stupidly dangerous.’
‘Ah madam in hunting there are but two words about safety. Should this in the least concern you, the words are. Don’t hunt.’
Sunday the sun outside was momentarily shining bright as heaven, as Sexton would say, and feeling much stronger, I walked through the house. Even to the spick and span ballroom. The parquet all waxed and gleaming. Where I felt it might be time for me to hold a grand party. Invite everyone of note from all over the countryside excluding only the very meanest. Unless they were especially of significance. No point in cutting off one’s social nose just to stick to one’s principles. And let them drink the cellars clean. Then before I decamp, pile straw in some quantity in the front hall and set to it a match and burn the whole ruddy place down just as the local peasantry have been threatening to do for centuries.
Darcy Dancer passing down the hall to the schoolroom. On the wall the old barometer newly cleaned. Its brass polished and hung back up again where it had not been for years. Its gilt doves surmounting its dial nestled in gilt oak boughs. Makes one feel you know the mystery of what’s happening out across the skies. And its rectangular mirror flanked by thermometers. Reading as usual rather cool interior temperatures and the weather pointer pointing as it always did between variable and rain. Everywhere one sees the work of Miss von B. Her constant improvements are the only things that give one hope for the future.
From out of the back of the library clock Darcy Dancer fetched the key to the gunroom. To unlock the big heavy iron barred door to that windowless chamber and therein choose from the mahogany rack of firearms my grandfather’s best shotgun. To polish and wipe clean its barrels of dust. Fill my gunbelt with a dozen cartridges. Just as Crooks pushed open the door.
‘Begging your pardon Master Reginald. I wasn’t sure that it was your footsteps I heard on the floor below in the wine cellar. You’re shooting.’
‘Yes Crooks, thought a few snipe wouldn’t come amiss.’
‘There should be plenty down in the bottoms. You’ll lock up well now Master Reginald. It wouldn’t do if any unauthorized person should have access in here. It’s this arsenal that keeps them having a second thought who would be contemplating getting past Kern and Olav with a mind to trespass in this house. And that scoundrel Foxy Slattery has been at the door with a chisel more than once.’
After lunch in my room and following a brief walk in the orchard and garden and through the farmyard where there seemed still fewer pigs and chickens in evidence, I returned with my legs decidedly springier and feeling quite refreshed. Went to take tea by the fire in the north east front parlour. Miss von B who said she had finally given up smoking and now had to occupy her mind, was seated with a local newspaper which was blotched and wet and brought personally for her by Luke all the way on his bicycle from the town in a miracle of speed and dispatch when an English ladies’ fashion magazine he’d been sent to collect didn’t arrive. The presence of a newspaper was in fact quite unprecedented. As my grandfather, who did not believe in modern communications, maintained that you could by human voice and ear, get enough news of anything that mattered within five miles of Andromeda Park to last you a lifetime and he would therefore have no newspaper or radio in his house. Much to the irritation of my father, my mother inherited this same principle. And now Miss von B totally hidden behind newsprint, was laughing. Rather uproariously I thought. And crossing and recrossing her legs most provocatively under her clinging grey wool dress. Perhaps she needs to take one hell of a hearty pee.
‘Would you mind awfully pouring me some more tea.’
‘Ah I am sorry.’
‘What has you so damned amused.’
‘Here, you should read. It is always of course, just like I say. The whole place is nuts.’
Miss von B’s finger pointing to the headline across the entire top of the page. Which I hold up between my two nervous hands. As one certainly does not know what and who, and especially including one’s self, will be the latest news these days.
SACRILEGIOUS ROBBERY
On Friday evening last, the Parish church near Thormondstown was broken into and robbed of vestments and a cask of the finest old Marsala Altar Wine. The empty cask was later found in the chapel graveyard. The Police are seeking to interview a man they think can help them in their further inquiries.
The man in question was seen by a witness who described him as ‘laggards drunk’ and who was spreadeagled on a memorial stone not far from the cask, singing ‘It’s A Long Way To Tipperary’ in a riotous manner, considering the vicinity. Witness thought that in the interests of keeping the peace he should inquire as to what such person was doing on the grave stone. As the witness who wishes to remain anonymous, more closely approached, he was at first aghast to see that it was a priest who was there prostrated and he immediately suspected that the reverend gentleman was delirious as a result of foul play. However as he inquired of the prone figure as to whether he could be of assistance to him, he was met with shouts and arm waving and loudly told to F off. Realizing this was not the language of a man of god he attempted to ascertain the identity of the stretched out form and thought he recognized the face of a person he had seen upon occasion in the district who had a reputation of a violent nature. This impression was immediately reinforced with the prone figure becoming quickly erect and with further use of obscene language and threats witness thereupon realized the fruitlessness of pursuing further pacification.
However the witness in beating a quick retreat, was then without provocation attacked, taking upon his face a swipe of a fist and his backside sustaining a kick of a boot. Witness said that in the circumstances he was forced to run every which way hopping over the gravestones for his very life, and as a consequence went down into a hole involuntarily disturbing and desecrating the dead and badly twisting both ankles where he lay incapacitated till dawn. The fact that his pursuer was in priestly robes and spouting filthy language left him with a very bad taste in his mouth.