And I could not hear what he said. But it was something that made Miss von B shout all the louder.
‘How dare you, how dare you say such things to me.’
By the time I got to the north east parlour door, Miss von B was opening it and slamming it behind her. Tears again welling in her eyes. Her face and neck all flushed red above the edge of her grey sweater and string of pearls. Her hand reaching out for my arm.
‘Come. We both shall go. Leave this place. I will take you away with me.’
And the parlour door opening behind us. And there he was in the same brown tweed with its faint line of red squares. His monocle back in his eye. Miss von B her arm around my shoulder standing together in the middle of the hall. Under my every important ancestor’s eye.
‘And Miss von B I will have you arrested for kidnapping.’
‘And you squander this boy’s birthright.’
‘It is none of your damn business what I’do. And the quicker you can get the hell out of here the better.’
‘I shall go. I shall go instantly. I am packed. You need not worry.’
‘Damn good riddance to you too.’
The door slammed. My stupid so called father gone back into the parlour. Miss von B and I went to her room. All the work she’d done mending and fixing, dusting and cleaning. And I tightened some leather straps around her bags. Of this woman. Who’d stopped the whole place from completely tumbling down. If only I could see Uncle Willie to ask his advice. Or even Sexton. Who regrettably imparted even more dismal news when I came across him in his potting shed. Separating out bulbs.
‘Ah Master Darcy, now, it’s a pretty kettle of fish. None of my business. What goes on in the big house. It’s not for the humble likes of me to comment upon. But they’ve got the guards alerted to keep an eye out at the station and around the roads. Sure now the disgraceful accusation is that it was yourself who took the master’s horse that led the gallop into the gossip concerning that poor innocent girl.’
Crooks was standing on the front steps as Luke came up the hill from the farmyard with the float. Miss von B in a long grey wool coat, a dark blue boubouska tied around her head. She seemed so suddenly really scared that she could be accused of kidnapping.
At the station, we waited for the train. Under the eggshell blue of a cold evening sky. Tiny clusters of clouds grey and underlined in pink. The sun setting. The trees’ branches so stark. The fields a faded green in the dying light. And two great swans coming overhead, their wings beating their white powerful strokes.
‘Look swans. Flying together. I hope that’s like us.’
‘I too my sweet, hope they are like us. Flying together.’
And chugging around the turning a little faster than usual came the train. Thundering and blowing and hissing steam into the station. Kern and Olav had run behind us on the drive out to the gates. And they sat really looking sad as we went down the road. Miss von B said to say goodbye to Sexton. And Crooks in parting clearly had tears in his twisted eyes. Luke looked all solemn and furtive. And all the way taking me back, to my every desperately cheerful comment he would say, ah now you’ve said it. Till I said nothing at all. And Miss von B with her four bags. None of which were awfully grand. Or marked with coronets. But I had made them at least secure with the big leather straps’ I tightened around each. And helped stack them over her head in the carriage. Silk stockings on her legs. Which curved she said in the true manner of an aristocrat. And as her skirt lifted getting her into the carriage, a gentleman already in the compartment was falling all over himself to help her in too. I was quite ready to punch him. But with my bandage attracting so much attention I thought best not to attract any more.
I held her gloved hand in each of mine, feeling through the thin kid skin the heat of her fingers. I was now going to say goodbye. My face looking up at hers as she leaned forward and down out of the compartment window. The wind and fresh air of the drive had brought a new freshness to her skin and colour to her cheeks. And it may have been the evening light but something seemed lost in her eyes. As if they looked over my shoulder and far away into the past. Or even remembering how she found me unaristocratically peeing that night off the front steps of Andromeda Park. But maybe it was because she had said goodbye on other trains. Even sadder than this. And all now that would be left of her would be the smell of pine and lavender she used in her cupboards and drawers.
‘My sweet, my sweet, my sweet. Just kiss me.’
In the scent of turf smoke to put my lips upraised towards hers. And feel the softness of their flesh. And suddenly the train was gone. I couldn’t somehow believe it. That I would see its lights going away down the tracks. And leave everywhere I looked so empty. Hearing the engine growing fainter now. Puffing and chugging and pulling. To roll. Big steel wheels clicking and clacking on this track. Out of this grey station to go past the miles of empty winter countryside. Over which the hounds give tongue. The scent taken. Watching from a hillside. Their distant white specks running across the low land of a valley. As they did one day. When Miss von B and I were gaily hunting. Standing with all the horses sending up a cloud of steam so that we all vanished from sight. Till away we went again. Over the beige rushes against the green. Find him. Run. Flying. Out under the scattered clouds. Gallop thundering on the endless green. Find him.
For he
Discourses
Somewhere
20
The carriage lamps lit as darkness fell. I had Luke take me round the country roads beyond the village. To delay returning to Andromeda Park. Petunia knowing her unerring way over the winding lanes. Passing the graveyard and church where Foxy had committed his sacrilege. And then the entrance gates and the curve of the rhododendron lined drive up to my mother’s elegant clerical friend’s little grey Georgian house. Whose sallow freckled face I remembered so quietly serene when once he talked of his travels abroad before the war. To hear opera in the strange distant romantic cities of Europe. And faintly recall my mother leaning forward like a bird to pour him tea and before he would reach for his cup he would always press his handkerchief further up under his silk cuff.
The shadowy trees go by. And the looming hills and walls. A moon alight behind the clouds. Smoke rising from a cottage chimney and mists settling on the great rusty black bogs. Across which the train now takes her. So that I may never see her again. I looked up at the window of the pub where Mr Arland had stayed. A lace curtain there. Nearly discern him standing just beyond its secret whiteness. The loneliness he must have suffered all those months. Pining for a lady whose ample backside would readily bare itself to open up her legs for anyone rich and titled. And whose grey stone house we also passed. What are her activities now. Having so conspicuously degraded herself. With me to thank for her downfall. Or even triumph. If ever she becomes a marchioness.
Cold windy and pitch black as we came in the back farm gate of Andromeda Park. Went splashing through the puddles and pounding over the broken branches and leaves collected on the road. As the float stopped at the steps, Crooks was standing at the south east parlour window. Not used since my mother’s death. And full of damp sofas stacked with pillows and faded prints of the hunt all over the walls. Then Crooks was opening the door and looking extremely concerned judging by his frown.
‘Master Reginald, I’m glad to see you. The guards were here. Looking for you. Did you see them.’
‘No. We came in by the back road.’
‘Thank our merciful saviour for that. I said you’d gone by the train up to Dublin for a few days. Which I thought was as well. As something told me by their attitude that, and god forbid such a thing, that they wanted to take you into custody. I told them it was that cur Foxy who did whatever they thought you did.’