The white uniformed lady who no longer had to push the bed pan under me twice a day, now smilingly helped me hobble on my first trip out into the hall. To make my way in overlarge slippers and faded white pyjamas and dressing gown thirty paces down the flagstone corridor. To a damp water closet with a cistern high up which dripped water down on my back as I sat. Till finally I got warmly dressed again. In my own clothes now cleaned and ironed and my diary back in my pocket. When I was put in a massive kitchen and given potatoes to peel and eggs to break each dawn into a great cauldron. I could with astonishing dexterity break one in each hand but of course did lose many shells in the mass of yolks. Father Damian came.
‘Good morning. Hard at work. You look much better. You’re feeling that way are you. Good. I think we might try to get you out and about a bit. And perhaps there won’t be so much shell then in the scrambled egg. Would you like to do some gardening. Good. Just let me know if you do not feel up to it.’
Darcy Dancer with an old man they called Deaners. Raking up the leaves and scuffling the winter weeds away between the pebbles. And often in dereliction of one’s duties sitting long moments on a garden bench in the fragrant fresh air and rare sunlight. Cheerful chirps of birds. Living on their wings. Here in these walled gardens. Perching over the gravel paths. In their winter darkened feathers. And the jackdaw who daily took a leisurely drink out of a roof gutter, went high flying beyond the turrets of this large building. With its big halls. Thick walls. And bells tolling. Where now at dawn before work began I attended at mass. Shuffling chilled from my bed into the chapel across a courtyard. Kneeling in the rear of all these black gowned figures filling the pews. An organ playing. Their voices singing Latin. And my soothed mind full of Miss von B and where could she be. In the big town of Dublin. With each week now passing. To await yet another. Feeling at least my strength returning if not my courage. Grunting to Deaners who never stopped asking me a lot of foolish questions. Was I out of the looney bin. Did I come from the land. And why didn’t I get a move on me just sitting there on my backside while he was doing all the sweeping up of the rotted leaves and spreading all the manure.
Then a wet old morning pushing a barrow of cut branches down the gravel path to where I’d dump them on top of the manure heap and where, when no one was looking I could squat day dreaming a leisurely hour or so hidden by the shrubbery and trees, my back suddenly stiffened and my pace quickened and I was altogether, albeit momentarily, a very energetic gardener’s helper indeed. For there right behind me came the voice of Father Damian.
‘Well now. We’ve been watching you.’
As one stops in one’s tracks. O my goodness. Here it comes. They’re going to fling me out. Shirking at work. Three helpings at meals. And putting lumps of clay in Deaners’ hat when he took it off. And laughing like a drain when he put it back on.
‘Young man you work with great intelligence. Now run and fetch me this list of books from the library. There’s a good lad.’
I was blissfully thunderstruck. And perfectly willing to be thought mentally capable. And now my afternoons were spent working in the library. Stacking and carrying books. Or when the librarian’s absence permitted, plopping myself behind a partition to most pleasantly and soothingly read these splendid tomes. Till a week later I sat on the verge of tears. Deaners at lunch saying that he heard tell they were on to me and that it was my last morning of gardening. And I saw once more the wet and winter cold stretching cross country. Instead of enjoying early mass and the murmuring prayers and the thundering organ sounds. And when Father Damian came in. I was ready to vocally beg there and then for another chance. Till a great smile across his face.
‘Now my boy. You are. Aren’t you. Finally going to speak to me. You’re an educated lad. And dare I say it, clearly of good background. I have recommended that you be entirely relieved of your gardening duties and that you be permanently assigned to the library and that you be permitted to attend classes here.’
‘Please sir.’
‘Ah good lord, at last. At last.’
‘Sir.’
‘Call me Father.’
‘Father. I am a runaway orphan.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m from the west. My father while he lived was a butler.’
‘So that explains this elegant voice. You are a rather surprising discovery. To turn up on Christmas morning. However we won’t read anything into that coincidence. You are clearly a young man of ability. We can do something for you here. But we should have to certainly make an effort to find those who as your next of kin may be responsible for you.’
‘There are none sir.’
‘I see. Are you Catholic.’
‘No sir.’
‘That’s a bit awkward. But doesn’t seem to prevent your devoutness at chapel. Well. That’s between ourselves. And we won’t press the matter further. But we must have information in order to seek permission from those in authority that we can provide for your further education. It’s not often one comes upon a young man whose aura and carriage gives promise of, how shall we say it. Future importance, perhaps.’
Promoted to cataloguing books in the library one now not only had a measure of authority but even a proprietory interest when sorting and restacking the shelves of dusty volumes. One also graduated to the end of a table in the large dining hall. With a group of young novices in training for the priesthood. Two of whom distinctly of peasant farming origins, constantly made snide remarks and behaved at every opportunity towards me in their most unpleasant ways.
‘What has our pukka boy there been up to today.’
I sat through meals in my secular attire silently looking down at my place. Just thankful to ruddy god that one had food three times a day and a warm place to sleep. With days now peacefully spent with much reading and scholarship in the library. The librarian with his massively thick spectacles seemed so often occupied with some vast work he was writing on the influence of the Old Testament on Gaelic literature that I indeed enjoyed a rather majestic privacy. Till one evening meal in the emptying dining hall. Just as I was leaving table. The more unpleasant of the two unpleasant clerics stopped in front of me. Who had so often passed his sour smirking asides in my direction. Just as I had often gritted my teeth instead of popping him a fist in his sneering face. And now he took his forbidden half smoked cigarette out of his mouth and threw it on the wide wooden scrubbed boards at my feet. To then lift his foot and with the sole of his shoe grind it into a small round smudge of ash and tobacco.
‘Clean that up pukka.’
‘No.’
‘Do as you are told, you phony snot. Or I’ll lay about you.’
‘No.’
‘So you are daring me. Come lads. Pukka is daring me. You are aren’t you. Pukka.’
‘Yes. I am. And I shall probably punch your face for you should you touch my person.’
The cleric’s muscles tightening across his cheeks, his teeth clenching in his jaw. His face grown white. A sickly smile slowly spreading on his lips. Staring at Darcy Dancer’s eyes staring back. The dishes clattering being collected from the distant tables. And the sound of my final evening chore when I worked in the kitchen. The barrels filled with leftover food being carted away out to the pigs.
‘I think we can settle this sudden display of bravery from our snooty pukka, outside. Is that right pukka.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then outside. Have you heard that now lads. He’s challenging me. Imagine. Pukka is challenging me. What about it lads. Any wagers as to how long he’ll last.’