‘Perhaps you ought to say why you really have come. It is isn’t it, because I broke your vase and for that I can tell you I am most heartily sorry. And I will, no matter how long it takes, I will repay you for it.’
‘Please you mustn’t say that. Every day crystal is broken, silver is scratched and bent, porcelain smashed. That vase is the merest of tragedies.’
‘You do say tragedy, don’t you.’
‘That word merely slipped out. I really don’t mean it in its sense applied to the vase but to you, that you might think it a tragedy.’
‘You can’t get out of it. I know how valuable it was. And I will, and you must let me, pay you back.’
‘O god Madam. O god. You can, can’t you, so distress me.’
‘Do I.’
‘Yes. When I don’t see you. And haven’t talked to you. And saw you at the whim room window as we rode off today.’
‘And why do you refer to me as madam.’
‘I don’t know. But somehow I must just feel the tide is appropriate.’
‘I go there just to stand to look out. When I am upset. And I have to be alone then. I watched you once come up across the park on your horse one evening a while ago. I know it’s presumptuous of me to go into that room at all.’
‘Please don’t feel that.’
‘Mr Crooks has given me my notice.’
‘I’m the only one who can give you your notice. And I have not and do not choose yet to do so.’
‘But I may choose yet to do so.’
‘And for that I would be most heartily sorry. And where would you go and what would you do.’
‘There are so many places I could go. To Dublin. I could find work in a shop.’
‘But you would have to live on a mere pittance. A shop girl earns nothing.’
‘I would manage. I have managed before this.’
‘Please don’t go. And we shall talk again, shan’t we, like this. Perhaps somewhere alone. Would you mind. We could meet on a walk. Tomorrow. In the afternoon before tea. There is a little old boathouse on the lake about a mile along the old farm road through the forest. Will you meet me. Please say yes. That you will. Now I must rush back to my guests. I know you know one of them quite well. Don’t you.’
‘I don’t wish to reply to your question, please. And if I am at the boathouse, I am there. And if not, I am not.’
‘Which may mean you won’t be.’
‘It may not.’
One did go on one’s gloomy way down the stairs. The note of doubt in her voice. Sad and cold as the shadows of the beech grove trees were out in the wintry darkness as one passes on the landing back to the dining room. Where now sat my guests. And two greater pals it would be hard to find. That the Mental Marquis and Rashers had become in one’s absence. One might have even thought they had fallen in love. Looking as they were beyond the purple ruby port into each other’s blue eyes. The Marquis in some awe to find Rashers’s father a distinguished General he had long admired. Who it would appear had won in the field of battle nearly every military distinction possible, including the Military Cross three times. And it would also appear that the Mental Marquis was nearly as distinguishingly entitled and decorated. Rashers quick to inform me in his Lordship’s momentary absence to take a piss.
‘My dear fellow, the Marquis, don’t you realise it, is a military hero. One of RAF’s leading aces. Downed Germans all over the kip, rat tat tat tat tat, all over the sky. Isn’t that wonderful. Don’t you realise.’
‘Well Rashers, clearly I have no option as you seem to insist on it with some hysteria.’
‘I must. Absolutely must repatriate his fifty quid. And much sooner than pronto. You couldn’t my dear man, could you, see it in your heart, in view of these circumstances of which I was absolutely unaware previously to give me the brief loan of the ten fivers required.’
‘I have already returned to you a previous loan of two fivers.’
‘Of course you have, my dear boy, of course you have.’
‘And that makes only forty pounds you require.’
‘Of course it is, my dear boy, of course it is. How silly of me not to realise. Of course. Forty will do. Of course it will. Good of you to point it out to me.’
‘But I have not said I shall give you forty.’
‘Of course you haven’t my dear boy, of course you haven’t.’
‘Or indeed said I even have such a sum.’
‘I shall never again ask of such a favour as I am doing upon this most desperate occasion. I promise you that my dear chap. Absolutely promise and cross my heart, not ever to do so again. If you can accommodate me on this moment of most desperate moments.’
Of course there were now tears in Rashers’ eyes. His lips were not perhaps trembling but it was interesting to find that I was in fact looking closely at them to see if they were. It was impossible to tell if one were confronting the biggest lying impostor of all time. In the soft candle light. The pleading look. Of utter genuineness. And even reinforced somehow by the lurking smile that would steal on his face and carefully recede under his look of stricken abysmal disappointment and sorrow.
‘O my dear boy. Recently and frequently, woe, trial and tribulation have been my lot. And I know. I simply absolutely know. You shall not on this most poignant occasion at least. Will you. Disappoint me.’
Rashers’ hand stealing out to place itself on my arm. And revealing my cufflinks under my nose. But his other hand firmly grasping his glass of port. His eye flicking towards the small amount remaining in the just recently refilled of the last of the two decanters. No question but that Rashers in his most soulful desperation was managing to keep an eye out for more mundane matters.
‘It grieves me my dear Darcy that I cannot at this time bestow upon you equal favours. You must please realise that.’
Rashers’s fingers gently squeezing upon one’s wrist. Yet there was some redeeming warmth in even his most crass attempts at purloining some new favour of one and taking advantage of one’s compassion. One does so want to be kind. Forgiving. Anoint tenderness to the suffering. But then from whom does one obtain it in return. To replenish that which one gives. Minor betrayals forgiven do seem to beget major ones in one awful hurry. Dear me, so much better to swear utter unrelenting revenge from the start And present an implacability against blandishment and beseeching. For to give in seems only to have the effect of people looking for more. And my god just as the last of funds disappear. The once adequate stacks of five pound notes. Now a mere handful.
Darcy Dancer with a candlestick glowing, opening the safe in the estate office. The old rent table with its drawers worn with the coins that once filled it up so consistently. The tenants for miles around outside the door as they stood waiting, caps in hands to pay. Or as my grandfather said, were more likely waiting to spin a tissue of lies and fibs why they couldn’t. But gone. Those days. Gone. More’s the pity. We were kindly landlords. Despite the bullets fired at the walls and shutters which might indicate we were not.
Rashers there in the candlelight just as one had left him. And putting back down a pepper mill on the table. His fingers seemed to touch and feel the tableware. Perhaps he has, as does the Marquis, a vast knowledge of antiques. Certainly he bloody knows the sight of eight Irish five pound notes when he sees them.
‘O my dear boy, thank you. Thank you. My dear fellow, you are, aren’t you, a dear brick. You are. So many have been less than nice to me recently, not that it matters when such behaviour comes from people I would not normally associate with. His Lordship will appreciate knowing that honourable standards are the unquestioned norm in your household.’