The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman

7

Foxy following his jump from the window had a broken finger. And his jacket hung caught between the branches of a yew and ash tree high above the deep impression he left of his feet arse and hands in the soil of a flower bed where he landed. Miss von B had shrieked and grabbed up her towel, rushing away back down the hall. Leaving Crooks, lame as he was, dancing over the broken glass in circles of joy. Till he fell groaning with a twisted ankle. To be escorted under the armpits by Norah and Sheila back to his chambers.

And I had made my way along past the bedroom door where von B had taken her bath. Foxy said it was the room where the hottest water came up from the kitchen range. And where, after a day’s hunting my father used to come to bathe in the medicinally beneficial big copper tub.

For some time after her impromptu nudity Miss von B was bundled in shapeless sweaters and often took till noontime to appear at all. And when she did I found my trousers poking out nearly popping my fly buttons. While I disported myself with an academic air carrying about my person books Mr Arland recommended I read from the library. And he gave me promiscuous exercises in Syntactical Parsing.

‘Kildare, take this down. To live long, ought not to be our favourite wish, so much as to live well. By continuing too long on earth, we might only live to witness a greater number of melancholy scenes, and to expose ourselves to a wider compass of human woe. Got it.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Good. Resolve syntactically into its elements, analyse and describe.’

Mr Arland’s quoted exercise seemed to me to make much sense, especially since the next night after the débâcle, Foxy’s father chased him all around their cottage pounding him with his fists. Until Foxy grabbed a hammer and clouted his dada senseless. To then run back across the fields to the farmyard and go up to the tiny bedroom loft over the stables, from where watch was kept on foaling mares. And there he jumped upon Luke the sleeping groom, who had been one of the four upon whom he had sworn vengeance. Punching his face black and blue and tearing one of his ears half off.

Next morning Foxy was gone. The rumour was he’d run away to join the circus. And then one late afternoon a week later I was out galloping my pony up over and down the other side of spy glass hill. When I heard this shout. Coming from behind an entanglement of gorse and brambles. And as I reined round there was Foxy cold and shivering, a big old macintosh over his shoulders.

‘Ah is there no sign yet of his funeral.’

‘No, he woke up this afternoon.’

‘Ah I’m glad to hear that. I was sure he was murdered with the guards out after me. But I didn’t want to do me poor old father any permanent harm, just to keep him quiet a bit so’s the whorer wouldn’t always be after landing punches on me.’

By darkness accompanied by Kern and Olav, I brought Foxy butter bread cheese and turnip slices. And watched him over a fire, burn the feathers off a chicken he caught the night before roosting in the barn.

‘The doctor said you put dents in your father’s head. And he still doesn’t know where he is. He may be invalided to bed.’

‘Ah sure after a while they will clear up and he’ll feel the better for it. I’ve had them dents all over me skull and it only would make you that bit giddy now and again. Sure half the time I don’t know where I am meself.’

In mild moist westerly breezes the white snowdrops were poking up in the long sheltery grass under the chestnut trees. Foxy was again back milking and making himself as his father said, useless around the farmyard. And just before Christmas my father sent a wire that he was detained in Dublin. My two sisters now taken from school and sent to live with an elderly maiden aunt in Devon. From them came a stamped and addressed photograph. Where they stood wearing wide straw hats by a beehive in a winterish landscape in an orchard, holding between them a comb of honey. On the back of the picture a message scrawled.

WE MISS OUR SMALLEST DEAREST BROTHER

Early on Christmas eve, Uncle Willie came. In a black glistening gilt trimmed brougham drawn by two splendid black mares. The top hatted coachman’s face reddened by the wind and Uncle Willie’s by the indoor consumption of malt. And I saw him from the whim room walking back across the front lawn where I knew he’d been visiting my mother’s grave. Foxy told me he’d handed out half crowns round the household and gave him a pound. And that it was grand that there was such a decent skin as my uncle and didn’t his race horses deserve winning races everywhere across the countryside so that his pockets were stuffed with stacks of them big hundred pound notes that farmers peeled off at the markets.

Uncle Willie sat with me in the recently dusted library, where the spines of the old bound volumes had been wiped and polished by Miss von B. His blue sad eyes under bushy black brows looked round the shelves and his big hands took a glass of whiskey brought by Crooks.

‘Ah in spite of the depredations the old place is holding together. It would still take a lot to tumble all this in a heap.’

‘Crooks is threatening to give his notice if Miss von B the housekeeper stays.’

‘Ah don’t mind Crooks. He’ll go to his grave here. And you wouldn’t be doing too badly either if you went to yours beyond as well.’

‘I don’t want to stay here to die.’

‘Sure this is yours. To keep you living. Every last pillar and post and beyond there for well over a thousand good fattening Irish acres or more.’

‘Do I own these books too.’

‘Ah your mother’s father was a great one for the books. He got them I’m told from all over. Sure them’s yours. Along with every blade of grass every stone and brick and beast breathing out there on the land. In trust as you might say. Ah in spite of all the housekeepers it misses the hand of your mother. It needs a mistress like that marvellous woman. But now you’re growing into a young man. I hear tell you’ve been raising some hell out there in the bogs. Ah don’t mind that a bit. Sow your wild oats. Sure your father’s still sowing his.’

And as Uncle Willie slammed the carriage door closed and put down his window to say it’s been grand grand grand, he kissed me on the brow as another carriage came up the drive. My mother’s two strange clerical friends. To call. And I sent a reluctant Crooks quickly for Miss von B to assist receive them. And ordered tea in the blue parlour. Where the four of us sat. With Miss von B in a pink flowered dress talking excitedly of opera. And the two clerics frowning their eyebrows as their eyes, between mention of Verdi and Wagner, swept the empty spaces and table tops that had once held the objets d’art they so often had declared they adored. And when I said that my father had stolen these things from the house. And I would demand their return. There was much awkward silence and reference to their large gold waistcoat watches. Till they politely bowing and stuffing hankies back up their sleeves, took their leave.

‘That was not proper for you to say, that your father steal from this house.’

‘He’s a dirty thief.’

‘Grosser Gott, shame on you.’

On the suddenly grey cold misty Christmas morning all the household and estate workers assembled in the front hall. Kern and Olav getting many pats on the head and wagging their big grey tails. Mr Arland came by his bicycle early to stay to Christmas dinner. He stood nearby sniffing from his knuckle his little speckle of snuff and overseeing as I shook the hands and gave each an envelope out of the black strongbox brought from the town bank the day before. First in line was Foxy’s father now able to limp about. With two red healing imprints of a hammer’s head on his brow. Followed by Luke the groom who wore a bandage over where his ear had been sewn back on. And last came the ancient white haired washer woman Edna Annie with her gnarled face and hands, who never left her two steamy laundry rooms where she ate and slept. Now made her little bow and gave her toothless smile.

‘Ah may the god almighty save and love you you’re the spitting image of the mother.’

Shortly after Crooks rang the dinner gong Miss von B appeared from around the grand staircase just as Mr Arland and I, proceeding to the dining room, came along the hall. We stood aside for her. She wore a flannel skirt, string of pearls and a flimsy blue blouse through which one could see the white shapes of her undergarments and there was a heavy perfume in her wake. She awaited my seating and as I gently tucked in her chair she gave me her first smile ever. I nodded but couldn’t smile back. But found myself stealing glances at her sitting there to my right, her hair brushed back straight from her forehead, and a gold bauble hanging from the lobe of each ear. As I felt a thumping in my beating heart, she was suddenly and strangely looking pretty. With Mr Arland on my left glumly looking sad.

In the course of my carving I sent a goose leg skidding into Miss von B’s lap. She tweezed it up with her napkin covered fingers and without a murmur placed it on her plate. And finally in my embarrassed anguish, I dismembered the bird, chopping off the remaining limbs piece by piece. Crooks clearing his throat in a pained manner and pretending to look out the shuttered window as the grease and gravy slopped all over. Till he finally retreated to serve the wine. The bottle wrapped in white linen and each drip carefully blotted from the pouring. And then his chin loftily raised surveying matters before ushering Sheila and Norah to serve the sprouts. Seemingly the nude sight of Miss von B did something for his morale and he mostly now passed her silently by. While Mr Arland asked in his best quizzical manner.

‘I understand Miss von B that you rather had a difficult time escaping from Warsaw.’

‘What do you mean, I have not escaped from anywhere.’

‘O I am sorry, someone had told me you had.’

‘Do not believe all you hear Mr Arland. There is much rumour and story I am sure.’

Darkness fallen and the tallow candles, made by Catherine, lit and smoking in the hall. Coffee and brandy served by Crooks in the salon. The polite conversation continuing as I drank my lemon barley water and the fire blazed. Miss von B seated on the sofa. Her long angular fingers brushing a speck from the recently laundered flowered cover. And smoothing her skirt down, her legs stretched crossed, with two tiny mends now on her silk stockings, from which I caught Mr Arland withdrawing his eyes as he stood sipping his brandy at the corner of the mantelpiece. We spoke of horses and hunting and Mr Arland referred once more to the prewar beauty of Warsaw and Miss von B said somewhat testily that she came from the Salzkammergut and was born in the small town of Durnstein on the Danube. And was not and had never been from Poland. And later that evening we played each other in chess, Mr Arland finally winning against a battling Miss von B and I thought, as I enjoyed the evening’s society that perhaps this would be the only family I might ever know.

Mr Arland said he had to be up early in the morning. If he were to be ready in time to come and see us all off to the meet. He rose and bowed at the salon door to Miss von B who inclined her head gently in his direction. He thanked me in the front hall as I helped him on with his naval great coat.

‘You know you are, Kildare coming along quite nicely. Your chess game is lively. And despite a little slip here and there with the goose and a few other small lapses regarding your French irregular verbs, you promise to be a most worthwhile member of society. Indeed to use your sobriquet, one might say, the destinies of Darcy Dancer, gentleman, are foretold. And I must thank you again, and for the marvellous cravat. I shall wear it often.’

The sound of rain on the skylight. Faint embers of the hall fire. Mr Arland keeps so secret all his woes. To return back to his lonely room. Into which he would never invite me. And once I saw his cracked ceiling as he kept me waiting in the governess’s cart outside when we were on our way to the big castle and he had detoured to collect prints to show the ladies he lectured. And he told me. When I was stammering over some words. That he had stammered. So much so that he could not speak. And remained mostly silent during all his school years. Until upon entering University, he had changed his rural Irish accent to an English one. And never stammered again.

‘Kildare, I wonder might I trouble you with the request of a favour. I fear of a rather personal nature.’

‘Most certainly Mr Arland.’

‘It is somewhat of an imposition but would it be asking too much. I should like for tomorrow’s hunt to borrow kit, should there be any spare lurking in the household.’

‘Ah Mr Arland shall you come out with us tomorrow. After the fox.’

‘Yes Kildare, after the fox.’

‘That would be so splendid. You’ll be my guest and most welcome. We have drawers and closets full of breeches, jackets. I’m sure we’ll fit you out. Crooks will see to everything. I didn’t know you hunted.’

‘Well Kildare, I don’t actually. To tell the honest awful truth. At most I’ve been on a horse. And when given a little luck, have stayed thereon. And I might just manage I think not to give too much offence if I turned up.’

‘The scent should be good tomorrow. O that’s exciting. You’re coming out. That really is.’

‘I’m not quite so sure about that, Kildare. As I think I am very likely to break my neck.’

‘Foxy will have a very safe mount for you. We’ll saddle up Petunia.’

‘Thank you Kildare.’

Watching from the open door Mr Arland affixing his candle lantern to the front of his handle bars and disappear down the little hill beyond the rhododendrons. The world so dark wild and windy out there that you could not think that it would ever blossom so green again under grey skies at morning.

And Mr Arland now, who would come, perhaps even hard riding by day on the chase and hard drinking by night. And who had brought me once to have my hair cut. To the fox hunting barber he said was the most erudite in the county and with whom he often discoursed in the pub. And Mr Arland asking him why he hadn’t seen him having a pint for some time. And the barber stopped cutting my hair and looked up at the ceiling.

‘Now I’ll tell you Mr Arland, I had to give up the hunting and abandon the drink for a bit, as I drank so much the scissors of a morning was jumping like a live fish out of me hand.’

And as I sat there I felt the nip of the leaping shears taking bites out of my scalp. With Mr Arland grinning behind his sleeve.

And tonight to walk back over these worn, chipped and cracked black and white tiles. Push ajar this heavy mahogany door into the salon. Its warmth of fire and light. Miss von B, a tome open across her lap, turning the pages.

‘Miss von B may I offer you further refreshment in the way of another liqueur.’

‘O I couldn’t. It is my third brandy.’

‘It will as a matter of fact be your fourth. But of course I’m not counting.’

‘Ha ha.’

Darcy Dancer taking the stopper from the decanter. Crossing the creaking boards under the carpet to pour the pale brown liquid with its sweet aroma into the balloon shaped glass.

‘Miss von B I don’t believe I have had the pleasure of hearing you laugh before.’

‘The occasions are perhaps rare, I admit. Nothing has been very funny for some while. Today it has been very nice. And you, you can be a perfect little gentleman when you choose.’

‘I hope you have not been too unhappy here.’

‘Ah but anywhere you can be unhappy.’

‘Have you been very unhappy somewhere.’

‘I have seen much and been through much. So much awful things. Here at least there is a little peace.’

‘And madness.’

‘Ha yes. But it is mostly foolish madness. It is not evil madness. Maybe there is evil madness but I do not see it yet. You turn the water tap it say cold and out come hot. It is dirty and the people are stupid but what matter. Maybe it is better that way.’

‘Mr Arland is not stupid. Nor is Sexton.’

‘Mr Arland no he is not. He is very clever. He speaks such perfect German, such perfect French. But Sexton O tempora O mores, he says. With this black mess on his hair. It come off all over the cabinets in the flower room and everywhere it gets on the vases. He is charming. But quite insane.’

‘He would not appreciate it to hear you say that Miss von B.’

‘No Sexton, poor man he would not. He is so easily upset. Ah but it is beautiful, the hills, the fields so green. And when sometimes you want it to be, life can be so slow. That you do not do today what you won’t do tomorrow.’

‘That is because cattle never stop eating and the grass never stops growing.’

‘Yes perhaps that is why.’

‘And we have rainbows.’

‘Yes you have. And it was nice that you call me when the priest and parson come. You and I, I think we could be friends. Perhaps. But you should not call your father a thief.’

‘That’s what he is. If he is stealing what is mine. And all this belongs to me.’

‘Ah you are a funny little one.’

‘I’m not so little. And I don’t think I am so funny.’

‘Ah but you are. Come. Sit by me here on the sofa. I will not bite you.’

Two candles guttering out on the mantel. And the glow of the fire waving on the moss green brocaded cloth of the walls. The wind still blowing hard beyond the panes and shutters. Darcy Dancer placing a log on the fire and pushing the big embers together. Letting the tongs lean against the cold marble chimneypiece. To go sit on the sofa. My jacket tight, my sleeves short and trousers hiked up round my ankles. And Miss von B pats a seat beside her.

‘Ah but you can sit closer than that. Come. Here. Beside me.’

‘I don’t mean to be unfriendly Miss von B but I do think I am close enough. I have an aversion to being too close to people.’

‘Ah what is that word aversion. I do not think I know it.’

‘It means repugnance. I have a slight repugnance to other people.’

‘Ah repugnance, now my English is not that specialized. This repugnance, what is that.’

‘I suppose incompatibility. Not getting on with others.’

‘Ah but you get on. Perhaps it has not been too good between us. But it has been better like now and today.’

‘Why does Mr Arland think you come from Poland.’

‘As a matter of fact, as you say, that is a long story. I shall tell you sometime. But now you tell me something.’

‘What.’

‘About that day in the bogs. You don’t want to tell.’

‘No.’

‘I understand you were over there to learn something about life.’

‘Who told you that.’

‘Ah I have perhaps ways of learning these things. You have such big innocent eyes. With the beard coming on your face. Your voice it is getting deeper. And you do not know about women.’

‘I know about women.’

‘Ha ha, you know nothing.’

‘I do.’

‘I could teach you about women. As Mr Arland, he teach you Latin. But you might make it difficult.’

‘What would you teach me.’

‘You are so young. And there is so much to learn. Perhaps it would be better for a start, that I ask you what you would like to know.’

‘Are women cruel.’

Miss von B taking her long ivory cigarette holder which stuck out from her gold mesh opera bag. Delicately pushing a cigarette in its end. As she raises it held between the very tips of her fingers. She stands up to step to the chimneypiece. Putting down her glass and leaning to light the cigarette in the flame of a candle held in the blue pink and gold candelabrum just as the clock tinkled the time. And she regarded the tiny watch on her wrist.

‘Ah that clock is only two hours wrong.’

Picking up her glass again and turning, as she used to do in the front hall, and lifting her chin to blow out a puff of smoke. She crosses to the decanter.

‘May I, Master Reginald.’

‘O yes of course.’

Her eyelids flutter as she removes the stopper. Closes her fingers around the neck. Lifts and pours out the liquid into her glass. Squinting as smoke from her cigarette curls back in her eye. Squaring her shoulders back. Her chest rising and her bosoms stretching out white under the light blue gauzy fabric of her blouse. And she downs nearly all the brandy in one gulp. As something gets awfully stiff and pointing distinctly upwards in my trousers.

‘Yes perhaps they are. Women are cruel. They are much crueller than men.’

‘Are you cruel.’

‘Yes at times I am cruel. But if I am not cruel. Cruel people they are cruel to me.’

‘How old are you.’

‘Ah you ask the personal questions. How old do you think.’

‘You are thirty.’

‘Ha I am not going to tell you how old. How old is Mr Arland.’

‘He is quite old too.’

Miss von B’s eyes seem blue. When always they were colours I could not remember before. She smiles around her lips. And one brow rises. She stares down at me. Like a matador must do at a bullfight. Only I have never seen one. But Miss von B appears to be crossing the arena with her gently shifting hips. And she goes. With her long legs. So slowly. Back to her seat. With her brazen bosoms. To turn. Blazing them at my eyes. And then so carefully. To sit. And raise one thigh and knee over another.

‘Old. My dear boy. What do you mean. I am not old.’

‘Mr Arland is twenty six.’

‘That is young, my little fellow. Surely he is older than that.’

‘Mr Arland is a little balding on the front of his head and that makes him look older than he really is.’

‘He takes this what do you call it.’

‘Snuff.’

‘Ah, der Schnupftabak. His Taschentuch, it is brown from wiping his nose. Sexton says he is in love. With the little beauty on the hunt with the golden hair. That he follows on his bicycle when she is on her horse. And he goes with the banjo to play outside her bedroom window in the rain at night. Sexton says it make the cats and dogs of the village howl while he sings.’

‘Sexton is a shocking liar, sometimes. I don’t really think it is anyone’s business what Mr Arland does.’

‘Ah, you are loyal.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you are so young.’

‘Please stop saying I am young.’

‘But so you are.’

‘You are really trying to say that I do not have knowledge of the world.’

‘Yes perhaps.’

‘I have more sense and intelligence than people twice or three times my age.’

‘Yet you do not know about women.’

The candles flickering low. Miss von B raising her glass to me. Signalling for another brandy. I watched her return the chess pieces to the game box, one by one placing each in its proper place, and with her fingers gently on the veneer, close the leaves and snap the top shut. She rises tireless to adjust a drape or straighten a picture on the wall. And now I smell her faint perfume as I lean towards her to pour. And she asks raising her smiling face up to mine why I didn’t have one as well. And I spilt a little of the spirit in a glass and twirled it round as my father did. During other wintery evenings as he sat alone in the library in front of the fire, long sticks of incense burning on the chimneypiece, a cigar in one outstretched hand, a glass of brandy cupped in the other. As he lay back his head on the chair pillow, his eyes closed, listening to choirs and mournful singing chants on the gramophone. And once with his brandy bottle empty he sent me for another and I woke him as I clonked it on the table marble. His one eye opening and his monocle slipped to rest on his chin. And without moving lips or a muscle, he bid me pour him a dram. I took a considerable time to engineer the contents of the bottle into the glass, and he turned to see me sniffing my nose in the strange aromatics. And then told me to get another glass and pour myself a drink and bid me take a cigar from the humidor and light it up. I stood there sucking in the horrid smoke and feeling the liquid sting my mouth and burn my throat. Holding the distasteful things away. And he said be a man about it, take a good long puff and a good deep drink. I exploded coughing in smoke and spluttered out brandy across the room. My father put his monocle back in his eye and informed me.

‘Well you little bastard, you’re not much good at smoking and drinking either.’

Next morning I came back down again to the library before the shutters had been opened or servants attended the room. And as I made my way across to a window to let in some light I felt brittle broken matters underfoot on the carpet. And saw bottles and glasses smashed in bits. Chips knocked out of the marble where they had hit the chimneypiece. A side table with its ormolu embellishments blasted as Sexton would say to hell. The pages of books ripped out, strewn and torn all over the floor. And taste this brandy now as I had-planned to do again that morning till a strange fear made me leave that musty book lined chamber.

‘I have not had the occasion to know about women.’

‘Ah they are funny ones.’

‘Are you funny Miss von B.’

‘Ha who is to know or who is to care out here in all the rain. But please. Can we not now no longer say Miss von B. Is it not time now that we drop such formality.’

‘If you wish.’

‘I think it would be more camaraderie, for you to call me by my christian name. Yes.’

‘That might set a bad example. Crooks may come along and call you by your christian name.’

‘Ha Crooks. The crook.’

‘He is no such thing.’

‘Ah his room, in there he has a locked door. Behind the locked door is kept the whiskey. His breath all the time it smell of whiskey.’

‘That is the room where our butlers commit suicide and it is always kept locked. But your breath too I have noticed on many an occasion smells of drink.’

‘Ah but of course. I admit I have the little bit of sherry perhaps or I would commit suicide. Or would you want me to freeze to death. Tonight I am warm perhaps for the first time. But now you must call me Gwendolene. Ah you are a little love dove. So sweet. I want to take you up in my arms and be a mother to you.’

‘Don’t you dare. Attempt such a thing.’

‘Ah I frighten the poor little boy.’

‘Madam I do think you are taking liberties with me. Assuming as you do that I am young and innocent and not able to protect myself.’

‘Ah but this madam, she knows something.’

‘What do you know.’

‘Ah that you have spied on me.’

‘Who told you that.’

‘I have no need to be told. I saw you. You went down the hall after the fight of Crooks and Foxy. What is the matter. Have you not got something to say. Of course I understand. It is entirely natural. That you should climb up on the chair and look through the little window. It is merely playful. But of course it is not what a gentleman would do.’

‘I think, if you will excuse me Miss von B, that I shall retire for the evening.’

‘Ah what a pity. Why don’t you wait a moment and I shall sing for you.’

‘There’s the meet tomorrow. And I have promised Mr Arland that he would be fitted out.’

‘Ah Mr Arland is to hunt. We all shall have, how do you say, a merry spin. But I would like to sing for you. Please. Sit down. And listen. Just a moment.’

Miss von B opened her lips and a low humming voice came out. Growing slowly louder. And turning into German words. As the vein on her throat grew big and blue. And I feel that clearly this is the most terribly embarrassing moment of my entire life. Especially when one is fuzzy in the head and so little schooled in music. And hardly knows what a rondo is. Ich liebe dich. I do believe she is singing. Was seen escaping down the hall. Nothing one does in this house is private. With blame whispered up the stairwells and in every nook and cranny. Eyes always watching. Every footstep heard. The window boarded over that Foxy jumped through. The landing dark now both by night and day. And worse haunted by the staring suit of armour. Her ankles crossed. The black shiny leather of her pointed high heeled shoes. With small silver sparkling buckles. In the shape of a butterfly. One does not know quite where to look during this aria. And I feel that somehow any second now Count MacBuzuranti Blandus O’Biottus will, with pink ribbons flying from his wagging extremities, come dancing and skipping through the salon door entirely otherwise unattired in the altogether. With the three of us dancing a quadrille.

‘Ah you like the buckles on my shoes. Did you also like the song.’

‘Yes it was quite nice.’

‘Come with me have another brandy. It is so marvellous. It is only now my fifth.’

‘I think it may be as a matter of fact your seventh.’

‘Ah as all the English gentlemen say, that is what they always say. As a matter of fact.’

‘I am distinctly not English. And really I should be going Miss von B. I must search out kit for Mr Arland.’

‘But one, just one little brandy. It is so nice here. It is the first night that I have found it pleasant. Peace, it is as beautiful as war is horrible. And why did you come to look at me when I bath. Is it because you want to see what a woman looks like.’

‘This is a rather mournful line of questioning you are pursuing Miss von B. It really is.’

‘What did you see.’

‘Nothing. I was merely.’

‘Merely, merely what. What merely.’

‘Merely. I was merely.’

‘Ah merely. Merely what. So you were there. Of course you were there. How dare you. Spy upon me. Disgraceful. And your father should know. But then. Ah then. I am not what you call the tattle tale. But it is what is wrong with this place. So much taboo. Like a woman’s body. Maybe it is because it is so wet and cold.’

‘I am rather now proceeding to bed Miss von B.’

‘O well who cares. Goodnight. Bye bye. Sweet dreams. Toodle ooo. So long sonny boy. Baby.’

‘I do think you are being rather vulgar.’

‘Ha. Vulgar. I am being nuts. That’s what I am being. And are you still to be a bishop.’

‘Goodnight.’

Darcy Dancer bowing. Taking a pewter chamberstick from the chimneypiece to light the way. Turning towards the door. One last look at her slender legs crossed. Her calves come out of bigger stronger thighs. She licks her lips as she speaks. And Foxy brought me all the way over the countryside to nearly get killed in the bogs. To teach me about women. And my sisters’ naked bodies that Nurse Ruby would never let me see. The sting of her slaps raining down on my legs. Each time she washed around my prick and it stuck up in her face. Creaking of floorboards. Open the door now quickly so that I can catch whoever is crouched there listening. Nothing but the cold breeze of wind pouring in from the hall. And perhaps it is rude of me to be so abrupt.

‘Miss von B.’

‘Yes.’

‘O it is nothing.’

‘Is there something you wish to say. You must say it.’

‘I hope I have not been discourteous.’

‘But of course you have been. But then I have been provocative. But why do we not both go together. We go by the same light and not waste two candles.’

‘That is a very good idea.’

‘Well then I shall finish my brandy.’

‘O do please.’

‘And then I shall be promptly right with you.’

‘O there’s no hurry, none at all.’

‘Ah but we must not diddle dawdle though, must we.’

‘No perhaps we must not.’

‘Then I come.’

‘Shall we use my light’or yours.’

Miss von B blows out her candle. Crossing from the sofa to put her cigarette into the fire, her glass on the mantelpiece and her ivory holder back in her purse. She walks, her hips swaying, and I think her lips smiling too, right straight at me. As my hand shakes holding the chamberstick. The chain of her opera bag over her wrist. Some curls of her hair loose from the bun at the back of her head. And my candle light throwing shadows across her face. If I stand up on my toes I’ll be taller than she. Only it makes such awful cramps in the backs of one’s legs. I keep swallowing down my throat. She stops. Takes off her shoes.

‘That’s better. Isn’t this how you and that Foxy go around the house.’

‘You are making fun of me.’

‘No. I am being what is known as discreet. We should not make a sound. Take off your shoes. Now we go. Blow out the candle.’

Turning right out the salon. On the cold stone floor. Towards the beech grove stairs. In the chill air of the front hall. Sound of rain up high on the skylight. She takes my hand. Presses her breast up against my arm. Soft and like something you feel when your fingers want to touch. Wind blowing against the landing window. When summer comes the tree tops out there will be full of screeching jackdaws. And I was rather angry for that moment when I saw Mr Arland’s eyes viewing Miss von B’s lower limbs. They say love hits you a blinding flash between the eyes if you are a gentleman. And between the legs if you are not. Making me at this moment a rather shameless cad. Right here on the landing. Where she’s putting her arms around me. A shoe in each hand. Pressing her face on mine. And opening her lips and parting mine. Her tongue pushing long and big and hard into my mouth. Embraced with the housekeeper. Fattened with the butter she eats and the cascades of cream she pours over everything. Her breath breathing against my neck. Her tongue digging in my ear. Just as I drop a shoe. The heel landing ouch right on my toe. And whoops. Now goes the chamberstick bounding back down the stairs.

‘Are you alright my little darling.’

‘Yes.’

‘Quick now my lovely. Come.’

Darcy Dancer’s hand held up to Miss von B leading the way. My shoe left behind. Plus a chamberstick over which Crooks is not likely to fall especially with his legs in their invalid condition and the memory of his last bottle skidding keeping him in some seclusion. But his midnight melancholia could sometimes drive him to pouring cold water over his head and crawling on all fours along the midnight halls. And perhaps right past Miss von B’s room, into which I follow her. And to where she had moved after much demanding complaint. With its canopied brass bedstead on which my sister Beatrice Blossom had slept. And with whom on the pink silk of the love seat along the wall, I played draughts on summer evenings. Her favourite dolls kept in the heavy iron chest. That Crooks said came from a Spanish ship which sailed in the Armada. Birds and sprays of flowers on the wall paper. Blue and green on white. And I’m so trembling. Just me and my heart. The shadow of von B at the door and hear the click of the key turning in the lock. She must see the shape of me shaking here with my back against the window sill. Breathing in the dark. The movements of her arms. Buttons opening. Stepping out of her skirt. The rustle of her clothes. A white slip like a ghost rising up and coming off over her head. Her hands behind. And her undergarment falls away. Her bosoms out right here in the room. My penis hurting hard in my trousers. Heart now jumping when before it was only thumping. What I saw that night is right up close and warm to me. With the splatter of rain on the window panes. Imprisoned. And really worried out of one’s wits.

‘Where are you going.’

‘Miss von B I must go.’

‘Go. Silly child. Why do you go.’

‘I must soap my boots.’

‘Luke the groom or Foxy will soap your boots.’

‘Neither of them do it properly.’

‘Are you frightened.’

‘No.’

‘You are. You must not be. Come. I am going to get in bed before I turn to ice. Ach du grosser Gott, there is no warm bottle. I have got the key. You must stay. I will not let you out.’

‘You are imprisoning me. That is quite illegal.’

‘Ha ha. I did not make you come here.’

‘You did.’

‘I did not. And I do frequently lock the door at night. Once the dog come in and push his big cold nose on my face and I jump up to scream.’

‘If I come into bed with you, is it not the case that with such intimacy you might then take advantage of me.’

‘What. What do you mean.’

‘I mean that you might assume you are no longer a servant.’

‘How dare you. I am not a servant.’

‘But you are the housekeeper.’

‘So who are you.’

‘I am the gentry.’

‘I too dear boy am gentry. I am plenty gentry.’

‘You are not.’

‘Well get out. If you are gentry and I am housekeeper. Get out.’

‘Give me the key.’

‘Go find it for yourself.’

‘Where is it.’

‘I have it right here, under the covers. What do you know about gentry. You are all peasants. With everything falling down around your ears. Who teach you these stupid things to think you are so magnifico.’

‘They are not stupid. It is how people like me are brought up to live. I am gentry and you are not.’

‘Shut up. Shut up you stupid boy. I am a Schlesgluckwigsonderstein, a princess before your ancestors could piss properly into the pot. You are nothing but a little peasant pig. Take off your clothes and get into bed. Or else I sock you. You are to be sure, so full of shit.’

You need

How do they say

Das Klistier

The enema