‘My god, I’m touched. My dear fellow. Touched. To the depths. To the marrow. The Count. The Count must be turning over in his grave. With envy. I retract my former most rude remarks. And sir if I were not so smitten here and so devilishly presently comfortable I would be upon my feet pumping your hand up and down in the utmost humble homage to your person. You are without doubt among the great tenors of this age.’
Rashers’s glowing eyes. His lips smiling. To see us both so stricken. Worshipping at his altar. Yet he remained so childlike in his joy at our appreciation. He was a dear man at this moment. So humbly eagerly delighted by our praise. Beaming at the Marquis. The Marquis beaming back. As if he had discovered both the north and south poles by flipping a coin backwards over the shoulder. And was now just back in the cosy firelit confines of the Geographical Society. O dear one does conjure up ridiculous ideas. But I did think his Lordship was carrying it just a little bit too far with his great long sighs and shakings back and forth of his head. But I must confess I did shiver right down to the bottom of one’s limbs. And even though one knows not a fig about bloody singing in the professional sense, I could imagine awed gatherings of folks in village halls all over Ireland opening up their hearts and pocket books to this voice. And even on the Tara Street bridge, a hat, or ten dozen hats, being passed around to be filled with ten bob notes. And who knows what would happen in other more sophisticated capitals. With such accumulation of riches Rashers could return home to Eire. Buy himself a piece of land and raise, during summer grazing, sturdy young beef bullocks.
‘Please do excuse me gentlemen, while I fetch more port.’
Darcy Dancer a candle held aloft, proceeding along the hall. The footfalls echoing. Down to the cellars. Fingertips so cold. How sad it all is, somehow. That such beauty sung has lain unknown in another’s breast. Perhaps one needs this evening over. This day done. For its non ending, utterly non ending sudden twists and turns draining of one’s emotions. Living in the country should be quiet. Like in these cobwebbed stone vaults. Instead of dramatic. But dear me the sweetness of his dulcet vowels still weave into one’s senses. Filling one with such an awakened fervour. To indeed love. To cherish life. To wrap arms around and even kiss misfortune. It of course too does mean yet another trip down to fetch up more port. Carefully ferry it back. And in the precipitous process upset the lees in the bottom of the bottle. And her. Her soul. Up there. In that room. From whence she might fly and go away. And leave me. So totally distressful. And in this moment of sadness as I pull on this cork. The dining room door my god bursts open. Kitty and Norah. Kitty shouting.
‘Come quick sir, come quick, it’s Crooks, Crooks, he’s hung himself sir. He’s up there his feet kicking in the butler’s hanging room.’
At least one did wonder, while this nice brand new disaster was so typically unfolding, if the contorting rope around Crooks’ neck would in some manner, as his eyes bulged out of their sockets, perhaps bring them back into alignment once more. Rashers, like a hound dog, eagerly awaiting me to show the way, and was indeed quite perturbed. No doubt contemplating a future absence of attendance being danced upon him. His Lordship, however took a different view.
‘O dear another servant’s demise. Well Kildare, damn it, it does remind one I’ve left my groom roasted to a crisp. Do give a shout if you need help dear boy. I mean a decent butler is a damn sight harder to replace than a groom.’
And the ruddy bunch of the rest of us skidding out the dining room door. Ruddy charging lickety split up the stairs. Rashers crashing into a side table on the way. The edge getting him in the lower stomach and doubling him up and one hopes not nearly castrating him.
‘Sod it. Sod it. My dear man. Light the bloody way will you before I kill myself.’
In the butler’s suicide room, Crooks draped in my grandfather’s motoring coat, a mauve scarf of my mother’s at his throat. The hanging rope up over the rafter but the noose hopelessly under one armpit and only half around his neck. His rosary beads in his hand. But instead of mumbling his Hail Marys he was moaning and feebly kicking the wall, slowly turning and twisting in a circle, a chair turned on its side beneath him.
‘Cut me down, cut me down. Let me the on me back in peace. Give me the viaticum. O Lord in thy greatest mercy release the spirit of this humble butler on this earth to join you in heaven and be eternally blessed.’
Rashers on the chair severing the rope. As Crooks fell down into our arms, and between his religious outbursts, clearly adoring all the attention. But now demanding as he was carried back into his bedroom and laid out on the bed.
‘Give me me teeth. I am without me teeth.’
Crooks’ room remarkably neat. Copies of Tatler and Sketch on a side table. His sofa chair with slippers parked in front of it and several dressing gowns hanging on the back of his door. But with his crushed teeth back in his mouth, and parts protruding between his lips, one cheek bulging, regrettably made him look like a vampire. Never mind, despite being drunk as a lord, he assumed the prostrate manner of a dying monarch on his bed, folded hands intertwined with his rosary, his body composed. Indeed with his crossed eyes closed and disregarding the disfigurement of a projecting point of one of his canine teeth, he did present a remarkably handsome countenance. And one could actually imagine the ladies giving him more than a tumble.
Darcy Dancer, Kitty, Rashers and Norah tiptoeing away out of the room. Leaving Crooks snoring asleep. Darcy Dancer excusing himself from Rashers on the landing. To head back up into this house. You might know that Crooks in his hopeless efforts to hang himself had most suitably dislocated his shoulder. And one chooses this moment to go back and find her door. Hesitating twice up the stairs. Racked with nerves. And even turning back. Until I was suddenly overwhelmed with anger. One had never before gone supplicatingly to knock on a servant’s chamber. But there was light inside. Standing in the dark the toes of one’s evening slippers illumined by the faint glow under the door.
‘What do you want.’
‘I’ve come to inquire to see how you are. And if you were disturbed by the commotion.’
Darcy Dancer standing in the silence. The cold draught blowing along this hall. Waiting. A vixen barking out in the frosty night. The squeaks and groans of the floorboards. O dear the poor lady, perhaps in there sick and ill. But the door opening. Her face. Quite magnificently beautiful in the shadow. And beyond, a candle lit on the black chimney piece. The low ceiling curving up over her narrow bed of this narrow room. Chill and damp. Strewn everywhere with bits of clothing. Torn pieces of paper. Two photographs propped up against the edge of a book. And next to them an envelope. Staring at me.
‘May I. Please. Just come in.’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘You have no fire.’
‘No.’
‘But you must.’
‘I am alright as I am.’
‘But you might become sick and ill.’
‘Please do not worry about me.’
‘But have you eaten. You haven’t have you. I will have something brought you.’
‘No please don’t.’
And all these terrible hours of agonising jealousy spent. With her being all over my mind. Relieved only by the tribulations befalling me. As she sits on the edge of her narrow bed. Or stood that evening ghost like at the whim room window. All these scraps of paper on her floor. The room in such utter disarray. So unlike everything else she’s so neatly done in this household. Including breaking a vase. Which may have been more precious than I dare to contemplate.