‘Kind of you Kildare but my hunter Rapscallion will take me home. Can fall asleep on that old fellow, and wake up on my front steps. But hold on why not, now that you mention it. I think I would damn welcome a bed. Just as my poor old tired horse would welcome not to have to hack miles in the dark.’
And now Crooks is going to any second collapse with his Lordship going off on another tack.
‘But by god, what’s this Kildare, a Tiepolo. Surely not. But by jove, it is, is it. No. Not. Maybe from the school at best. Want to sell. Good price.’
Poor Crooks his arms beginning to waver under the weight of the tray. When one thinks of it, Crooks is sometimes a real dedicated servant. When he is not goosing another member of the staff. My god when one does think of it, poor sod is up there in his celibate cell for years on end. Of course one would mercifully hope that he was past it at his age. And not poking plaster out of the walls in search of self satisfaction. As one is nearly doing oneself except that any fervent attempt would certainly crash this whole place to the ground. Crooks does seem to take pleasure from the Marquis remarking on furnishings and paintings. And is shaking his head up and down in assent at even ms bloody wheeling and dealing, as if he knew the girandoles were the answer to our prayers.
Darcy Dancer and his Lordship followed by Crooks entering the north east parlour. Lavinia and Christabel purple with cold huddling forward over the fire. And would you believe it, both now wearing what to my eye looks like my mother’s evening slippers. Indeed they are. Bloody, bloody nerve. Must have gone into my apartments and bloody rummaged around in my mother’s closets. And as his Lordship and I nearly fall in the door cigar first, Lavinia plumping down on the settee swinging up her dress with her pasterns showing. Two of them holding open copies of Tatler and Sketch. Clearly they must have been straining their eyes reading in the light of two candles.
‘Good gracious me. I did think we had been abandoned.’
‘Ah my lovely ladies. It is I who have I fear been transgressing good manners with a too long prolonged talk on politics and furniture and pictures to your more than tolerant brother.’
‘O dear, you were both being brainy.’
‘Well, attempts. Attempts. At best.’
Of course one does take one’s dinner and always awakes next morning not remembering a single topic or word of conversation one had the entire previous and agreeable evening. Proof that the exercise of one’s intellect is not needed to aid one’s pleasant digestion. But dear me, what ladies won’t hysterically do when sniffing even the vaguest hopes of becoming a Marchioness, not to mention ultimately a Duchess. If of course the Mental Marquis’ equally dotty father, the present Duke, demises. Astonishing how women size men up. Not quite like they would the best cut of beef in a butcher’s. But by memorizing every ruddy line of lineage in Debrett. Don’t care if your hair is falling out of your head and growing in profusion on your arse. Or if you’re wobbling along like a frog on two flat feet providing you’re doing it on your own endlessly extensive acreage. Or even if your toes are webbed. Which of course is awfully nice if you’re intending to beget children who shall wish to go fast as swimmers.
Christabel demurely lowering Tatler and Sketch as if it were some article of strip tease, which indeed she thinks it is the way she is batting her eyes.
‘O how wonderful champagne. But whatever happened to the bottle, Crooks.’
‘It was madam, sabred by his Lordship.’
Lavinia looking at Christabel as if this were some custom they were soon to have to come to terms with in this loony bin and the less inquiry the better. God. There the two of them are. Possessed of breasts and quite hysterically pukka vowels. And not that many years ago they were trying to stuff me into their toy pram. Calling me their own little baby. Nearly suffocating me with covers over my face as I struggled to get out And then when our mother died would call me their own little orphan. Exhibiting me to guests and saying, now watch, watch how we can make him cry. Then putting a comforting hand on my shoulder, they’d say, your mummy is dead isn’t she, your mummy is dead little brother and she will never, never come back again, will she. And of course I would cry. But the pain of this was never as searing as it had been when my mother still lived and they’d say your mother has gone away and left you little brother, little boy. And then I would get down on my knees and join my hands and sobbingly pray aloud, O please dear god, I beg you please bring my mummy back. And then they’d say, she’s out in the hall, we just heard her come back from hunting. As many times as they had previously played this trick on me I would still arise and rush out into the dark hall desperate with hope. And where, as I stood there sobbing, they’d say, O dear she’s not here she really has gone. So racked and wretched was I that I would press my face and body against the wall. Listening to the sound of winds shuddering up the chimney. All else in the empty hall a howling silence. And when it did finally happen that my mother came through the door to the I imagined for the longest time it was a dream, even to watching her coffin placed away. Down slowly in the ground. And so strange then that I shed not a single tear.
‘O this is nice champagne. Dear brother. If you don’t mind my calling you that, and also asking, whatever has got you so lost in reverie. Brainy matters I’m sure.’
‘No, not particularly. In this rather dumb part of the midlands it does not do to think too much.’
‘O dear we are cynical. Dear brother.’
One did attempt all the usual avenues of polite conversation, that not discussing horses and hunting allowed. Which meant, one is ashamed to admit, of hardly being able to say a word. But the words said did soon present the Mental Marquis, his head sunk back on the sofa cushion, his eyes slowly closing and faded out of consciousness, uproariously snoring. One did feel a little sorry for one’s sisters although they would understand that even drinking cauldrons of coffee, no one can keep their eyes open after hunting all day. Happily instead of taking umbrage, they laughed.
‘Dead to the world. And I think we ought to achieve the same dear brother and retire. It has been a long day. I’ve ordered breakfast for eight and a horse at ten. And if any of the motor cars are working again, and the petrol is to spare, we might motor to visit about. Who is there now who’s chauffeuring.’
‘I’m afraid the cars are laid up.’
‘O what a nuisance.’
Dreadful feeling. Only once have they voiced during the evening that it was nice to be home again. Christabel clearly thinks this place is utterly at her beck and call. And ah, that was a grimace of distinct distaste. As my god I do believe the Marquis not only snored, but at the very apogee of his nasal wind also shuddered in all his limbs and exploded in a sonorous manner a regrettably long and what is to my aware nostrils a lethal fart. Producing on one’s sisters’ faces a look of having just been slapped. Indicating that they might like his ruddy title considerably a whole lot, but certainly do like much less than a little, his impending fume. I knew that something terrible was going to happen tonight. And this is a sound and smell of more to come.