‘It is cursed, and should never be entered. Furthermore Master Reginald, it is not done for you to come to my chambers, it is proper you should summon me to yours.’
‘I rang the kitchens. And no one came.’
‘Still, it’s not done. And stay away from Foxy, he sets a bad example with every broken bone in his body.’
The electric light which always faithfully glowed pale yellow in the filaments of the light bulbs was wavering weaker and weaker each evening, and now went out. The generator set on the hillside in the woods received visit after visit from the amateur engineers among the men and was given kicks, nods, pats and clanks and spins and turns but stayed still. And a man from Dublin would not come till all of Andromeda Park’s unpaid bills were paid.
Candles now gave their flickering glow as the winds groaned along the stone paved corridors. And the shadows moved and loomed and maids, those with locks and those with keys to their doors, tried to make them work. With Crooks still at large midnights or dawns trying all the doors. And when my mother’s father’s portrait crashed down on the main staircase, Crooks stood there with a lantern and said the ghosts who have risen this night from the grave are guilty of this. And one more maid frightened into her senses was gone fleeing the next day.
The walnut grand piano began to warp and rust. The huge gilt mirror on the chimneypiece of the back drawing room fell forward where it lay crashed, broken and untouched on the floor. While slowly his mother’s fortune and estate declined with the further sale by his father of their shrinking lands. From six thousand acres down to three. And now several more and larger and nearer fields were auctioned. Neighbours’ boundaries coming closer and closer and arguments over trespassing sheep and cattle more and more frequent. With Crooks announcing himself at the schoolroom door as Mr Arland and I would look up from our books.
‘Mr Arland please forgive my interruption. Master Reginald, while his father is away, should have announced to him callers whom I am sure you do not wish to entertain the thought of seeing, but we must at least pay them the courtesy of inquiring that this is in fact the case.’
‘Thank you Crooks, I don’t wish to see them.’
‘Very good Master Reginald.’
Autumns, winters and a distant war, and his father’s absentee and indifferent farming spread weeds and left dead sheep and unmended fences and pot holed roads. With irate farmers now threatening violence and bloodshed on the front steps. And upon his infrequent brief returns, he would immediately following lunch, reconnoitre the remaining crops or livestock. To be heard cursing as he did when the men let the hay ricks collapse or a thorough bred horse get loose which a buyer was coming to see. And it had to be chased as it ran wild for miles. And always following three days of these continued catastrophes he would be gone again, not to be heard of for weeks and weeks. As more wagon loads of hay, sheep and bullocks disappeared, lost or stolen. But just as the grumbles would deepen, a money order would arrive for the agent, a swarthy beetle browed gentleman, to pay the back wages of the servants and men who lined up outside the old rent room.
And the evening following one such departure, and the recent hiring of a new lady housekeeper, I lay awake thinking that meaner men than my gambling father were getting closer and closer. Shouting out and shaking their fists at Crooks. And to feel I wanted to run. Gallop up over the hills. Take my pony and my mother’s dogs and find a round tower made of big stones where I could climb up into and be safe. From this new woman who went poking around the house snapping orders and commands at the servants and throwing Crooks into frequent door slamming rages. And a creak of boards made me listen and then I heard a little knock and a voice.
‘Are you there.’
And I thought some thoughtful ghost had come who heard me thinking. And the black knob with the golden circles, turning. A wind rushing up against the window and rattling the casement. And I sat frightened in my bed as the door slowly pushed open with a shadowy head under a cap peeking round it.
‘It’s me Foxy, are you awake.’
‘What are you doing here.’
‘Sure didn’t I tell you I’d come and get you. Keep your voice down and I have it all fixed.’
‘Go away.’
‘What way is that to talk when I near kilt meself getting in to get you out.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘Suit yourself but there’ll never be another time. As ripe as right now I’m telling you. I’m going meself whether you come or not. With whiskey and all. And don’t breathe a word of that. It’s me own whiskey and not out of the house. Are you coming.
The wind high and a full bright moon above the grey speeding shadows of clouds Foxy looking back over his shoulder. For any signs of the now two major demos of the household. With Miss von B’s room at the upper end of the corridor. Who had that day in her towered silk dress and white cloth gloves sent Foxy to the town to get men to come and mend the leaks in the roof. Wish Foxy standing in the front hall, his cap in hand and pulling his forelock as he said yes ma’am, that’s right ma’am. And then she called for Crooks to have the crashed mirror on the back drawing room floor cleared away. And her voice was heard raised and shouting.
‘I am in command of zis household and you should do what I say.’
And the mirror remained. With the seven years bad luck Crooks said anyone would get cleaning it up and he put his nose in the air and walked out. And as I came down the main stairs with Crooks slamming another door somewhere down the end of the hall, I could hear Miss von B still in the salon as she called it.
‘Swine. Dirty filthy swine. You are all swine in this house.’
I stood in some alarm and disbelief on the stair. Miss von B came out in the hall and saw me there. Composing herself, she stretched her neck, looking over both her shoulders from which she brushed imaginary debris. Then putting her white gloved hands to her throat she stood staring at me across the black and white tiles. I thought it appropriate one should adapt Mr Arland’s cool measured words and deliver them accordingly.
‘Ah Miss B.’
‘It is von B thank you.’
‘Ah, Miss von B. Do I perceive that you are aggrieved. Is there something I can do.’
‘What can you do with swine. It is squalid. These people are nuts. They are completely nuts.’
‘Nuts.’
‘Yah, nuts.’
‘I’m sorry but I do not know what you mean.’
‘Cuckoo. Batty. Loony bin. Fruity cake crazy. I am speaking perfect English. Do you understand.’
‘Yes.’
‘Veil den. I am thinking I am in a madhouse. It is falling down. The dirt. It is pushed under the rugs. The greasy fingers. They go so on the doors, on the lamp shades, on the objets d’art. The mud. It come off the boots. It go all over the floors. The hair off the dogs. The rain through the ceiling. Your father, he wants spick and span. It will be smudge and stain he will get.’
‘I am sorry. But we in Ireland do not think it unfit for there to be some dust and cobweb about.’
‘Dust and cobweb. Ha ha. That is a good one. You are dirty people.’
‘How dare you.’
‘Dare. Of course. Look at my gloves. They should stay white when I touch so, and look. My finger, it is dirt. A chicken it run back and forth downstairs, in the corridor. It come in the broken window. Then there is one dead in there behind the curtain. With the feathers all over the floor.’
‘Why don’t you go if you are unhappy.’
‘Go. I have just come. Sixty miles. I tell your father how I am treated too.’
Miss von B passed by me up the stairs. I thought perhaps on her way to her room to pack. But later she was in the blue walled north east parlour taking afternoon tea and perusing the colour plates of my mother’s large vellum bound volumes on pottery and china. Her only ally being Sexton who daily brought her a bouquet of flowers and said, by god she’s a woman of culture come in her innocence to this temple of defective intellects. And von B appreciating this attendance upon her, stood patiently but dumbfounded at Sexton’s stream of Greek and Latin. And one wonders now. If she lay asleep up the hall contemplating how to escape back to civilization again. Or if she sits up trembling at the creaks Foxy and I make, shoes in our hands, and stealing past her door. To proceed down by the west stair landing. The shadows of the grove of big beech trees out there. Through which we can run. To haunt the countryside this night.