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Sir Dominick's Bargain

Page 1

by Rufus Woodward




  Sir Dominick’s Bargain

  14 poems by

  Rufus Woodward

  Based on the story by

  Sheridan Le Fanu

  Olgada Press

  Chapbook no. 1

  2015

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by The Olgada Press, Edinburgh, UK.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright Olgada 2015

  The right of Olgada to be identified as the authors of this book has been asserted by them under the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, by any means, with prior permission of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Vane, venal Sir Dominick

  I travel to Dunoran

  This ruined house

  Higher than a man could reach

  It is an old story this one

  Hazel and birch tree, oak and fir

  A fair and a feast for a new squire

  Come home to go away again

  You know some men who would rather lose than win

  “Take this gift and belong to me,” he says

  A single brass needle pricks

  Seven years

  The fear is upon me worse every day

  Faithless, feeble Sir Dominick

  I

  Poor Sir Dominick. Vane, venal Sir Dominick

  What hope did you ever have?

  Spent your money ‘till every last guinea is gone

  On drink and dice, on women and dogs

  We know your story before you even start the telling

  No bargain like yours ever did end well

  Go to France, Sir Dominick

  Take your guns and your horses

  Take the first coin on offer and

  Fight for Napoleon, fight for Wellington

  Die on a battlefield as you were born to

  With a sword in your hand and blood in your nostrils

  It is a better end than any awaits you in Dunoran

  Poor Sir Dominick. Proud, boastful Sir Dominick

  He will come when your need is greatest

  He will offer you that which you want most

  Though the cost will be more than

  Anyone could imagine

  Poor Sir Dominick.

  What hope did you ever have?

  The trees stand tall here tonight

  Their shadows hang thick around you

  Listen

  There is the sound of footsteps approaching.

  II

  I travel to Dunoran

  By bog and hill, by winding stream and twisting road

  By rocky gorge and mountain range

  By wild moor and straggling wood

  I travel to Dunoran for business

  By mail coach and by horseback

  By posting house and rough thatched country inn

  I travel as a gentleman will do

  Solitary and melancholy

  But with eyes wide open

  A curious seeker after strange tales

  I have no face, I have no name

  I have no voice, save for the one in your head

  I am the stranger by the fireside,

  A wanderer in the woods

  I am the ghost at the heart of the story

  I am the ghost you cannot see but for looking

  I travel to Dunoran

  Up a long grass road, under the shadow of tall trees

  Along the ridge of a precipice

  At the wild edge of an ancient forest

  To an old house, ruined and delapidated

  Lonely and morose

  I travel to Dunoran

  III

  This ruined house stands doorless and open now

  Silent and abandoned. Black mould stains on

  Tall walls thick with ivy. It’s broken roof

  Hangs wide and ragged, barking at the sky.

  Such a grand house in its day. The pride of

  A whole county. A place of revelry

  And warm welcomes. Of wine and candlelight

  Golden threaded ballgowns and midnight masques.

  The marble-staircased heart of a small world

  Now weatherbroken and bowed down

  The transitoriness of all things writ clear

  In spoiled plaster, grey stone and wet oak.

  From the twilight sneers an unpleasant drawl

  It’s whisper shocking in the sombre gloom

  Harsh and oppressive and close in your ear

  Repeating and repeating

  “Food for worms, dead and rotten.

  Food for worms. God over all.”

  IV

  Higher than a man could reach

  Higher than a man could leap

  A rust coloured stain on the plaster of a wall

  Not a mark from the weather

  And not a strange vein of mould

  It is nothing, no, nothing so lucky as those

  A splash of old brains and blood it is

  Where the skull of the squire was crushed

  By the hand of the devil in a furious rage

  As the midnight bells rang out

  Marked there for a hundred years now

  And marked there for a hundred more

  No human hand will clear it, and no rain will wash it off

  The last master of Dunoran

  The last of the Sarsfield kin

  He’ll never leave this place now. Not while these stones still stand.

  V

  It is an old story this one

  But, you’ll believe me when I say

  All the more true for being so

  My grandfather first told it me

  When I was only a tiny boy

  And I’ve spoken and I’ve sung it out

  More times than you could ever count

  To anyone who’ll listen

  To anyone who will hear me

  But my back is twisted now and

  My head is grey and I know that

  Soon enough I’ll be put under this turf

  Where my skin will rot and my bones bleach

  And there will be nobody left

  Who’ll want to listen to me

  So this story is yours now

  Take it and tell it any way you like

  Tell it as many times as you like

  In dark forests and by firesides

  On dusty pages, in songs or sonnets

  Shape it and change it and turn it

  This story belongs to you now

  This strange legend of dunoran

  This story has some telling still to do

  VI

  Hazel and birch tree, oak and fir

  Down in the wood of Murroa

  Where roots burrow deep

  Where leaves grow so thick

  That no full moon ever shines.

  In the dark wood of Murroa

  Who knows what a man might find?

  Shadows that speak

  And beg for release

  While the devil himself rides by

  A gentleman walks out at midnight

  A rope tied to a noose in his hand

  At the end of his path

  Is a door like a trap

  For the unwary soul to fall in

  So it was when I was a boy

  When my grandfather told this tale

  But time is a child


  That burns all it finds

  And now only his story remains

  This grand old wood of Murroa

  Cut down till the mountain is bare

  Now the shadows are quiet

  And the doors are shut tight

  And the woods here are nothing they once were.

  VII

  A fair and a feast for a new squire

  The young master of Dunoran

  There was dancing and fiddling

  A welcome for all to come see

  This grand estate at its finest

  We had wine for the gentlemen and ladies

  Beer and cider enough to float a ship on

  All the farmhands and the stableboys

  All the maids and the servant girls

  All the pipers in the county came to

  Raise a cheer for our Sir Dominick

  Feast for a week and then feast for a month

  Feast till the weather breaks and work returns

  ‘Till none but the master was left feasting

  And dancing and drinking and dicing

  A sinful darkness upon him, they said,

  A bold compulsion to drain a fortune

  As though it were a barrel. A fever

  That raged and barked, that burned all it touched

  ‘till everything was gone and nothing was left

  And the house we feasted in stood empty

  And disgraced and quiet and alone

  The master of Dunoran

  The last of the Sarsfields

  Shame of an old family

  Gone to travel abroad

  Gone to flee the money lenders

  While debts still grow and this sad

  Old house rots in the woods

  Gone for a year, gone for three

  Waiting for an east wind

  To blow home through the mountains

  A cold and lonesome sound

  So hopeless and afraid

  “It is all over with me,” it says

  “It is all past praying for now.”

  VIII

  Come home to go away again

  Come home from far off places. Come

  To see Dunoran one last time.

  Come home, blown on an anxious wave

  To see, as if for the first time

  How small the old place looks, how grey

  How tired and unimportant.

  Come home laughing. Bitter laughter.

  Bent double over a tree trunk

  Coughing out curses, choked on a

  Thought that sticks in your throat. Who is

  The joke on if not you yourself?

  Come home, not like a father, not

  Like a lover and not like a

  Soldier returning from a war.

  Come home like a ghost to walk these

  Cold walls at midnight when noone

  Can see, to stand in the darkness

  With noone to wait inside for you

  Noone to sing sweet songs for you

  Noone to weep or mourn for you

  Noone even to notice if

  You ever come home at all.

  Come home with a plan in your mind

  Come home with a purpose you dare

  Not voice, not even to yourself

  Come home

  Come home to go away again.

  IX

  You know some men who would rather lose than win

  No matter what game it is they play

  Losing becomes an addiction for some men

  The taste they crave is bleak and bittersweet

  The acid cut of recrimination

  The shifting fog of lost illusion

  Some men will do anything to lose

  If it will bring their hand to a swift end

  They will happily squander a fortune

  Betray all their family, shame their name

  And think nothing of it. These men you know

  Might choose to die at any moment

  And be glad of it. And be grateful

  This is not the kind of man you are

  You are a gambler. You are not

  Afraid to lose, but you will not love it

  Even with the most hopeless hand you will

  Stay at the table, you will fight and play

  You will wait for the game to move your way

  So now, at midnight in the wood of Murroa

  Darkness so thick you cannot see your step

  Why play a move you could never return from?

  No. Take off the noose that hangs round your neck

  Stay in the game while the dice are still rolling

  Gamble and gamble and gamble again

  X

  “Take this gift and belong to me,” he says

  He does not lie to you

  Though the truth he tells will be

  Too terrible for you to hear

  A handsome gentleman with a hollow smile

  With a gold laced coat and a voice like warm wine

  He does not offer a name

  But you know who your master will be

  It is the sharp edged taste in the air that tells you

  It is the way his eyes know you

  The way each hair on your neck stands high

  The red itch on your chest where your crucifix lies

  “Take this bag of coins and more will follow,” he says

  Not pebbles, not stones, not nutshells

  Not empty promises to taunt and mock

  And disappear come morning

  A bag as wide as a hat

  Full of guineas bright and new

  A dreadful brightness to take in your arms

  It is the heaviest load you will ever carry

  “Take this good fortune and use it all,” he says

  Though your heart tells you not to

  Though your scalp creeps and your hands tremble

  And your skin turns cold at the thought of it

  You do just as he says

  Because debts are due with more to follow

  And demands rise on all sides

  And there are no friends left to turn to

  And there is nothing left to do

  But continue the journey just begun

  “You found the money good but not enough,” he says

  “No matter. Come with me.

  Are you willing?

  XI

  A single brass needle pricks

  Three drops of blood from a vein

  Strange words scratched on parchment slips

  And now our bargain is made

  For seven years I serve you

  When that time ends, you serve me

  A master and his servant

  XII

  Seven years

  Seven years of all the pleasures

  All the glories of the world

  Seven years of enough and more to spare

  Of never owing a penny

  Of never missing a card, never losing a wager

  Seven years of hounds and horses

  Of great company, of grand nights

  Of woman at hand and wine to drink

  Of never a moment without a bright fire lit

  Seven years of madness

  Of troubled thoughts as black as the night

  Of desperate diversion, of empty prosperity

  Seven years of knowing

  Seven years of waiting

  Of wishing for a place to turn, a place to hide

  Seven years of unwanted visitors in lonely places

  Of pale riders come at your side

  Terrible creatures in godless shapes

  Leering and laughing, filthy and ragged

  Who is the master now?

  Who is the servant?

  What is to come when seven years are done?

  What is to become of me when seven years are done?

  XIII

  The fear is upon me worse every day

  Fierce and growing, blowing like a gale in my
/>   Face, a roar in my ears. Fever claws sharp in

  My flesh. A poison in my blood. I dare not

  Trust my eyes any longer. My tongue is thick

  And tastes of ashes, and tastes of sodden earth.

  I have not spoken to any man in days.

  Thoughts scatter and tumble like shattered glass.

  I cannot drink enough to draw them together.

  Only one thing I do know – he is coming

  He is coming, he is coming for me.

  Oh God, can you forgive me? Father can you

  Help me? I would give up much to be free of

  This. I will make my confession. I will make

  My penancy, give over all my vices, change all

  My ways, live in retreat like a hermit, as your

  Servant, as your servant, Lord. Oh God, please let

  These prayers save me. Oh Lord, please let these

  Prayers save me. Please let these prayers save me.

  XIV

  Poor Sir Dominick. Faithless, feeble Sir Dominick

  Some stains you cannot clean from your soul

  He comes at midnight

  Here by appointment

  To keep a promise

  Too late for priests and prayers now

  Too late to run, too late to hide

  How happy, now, how inviting looks

  That old oak tree with its open noose?

  Like a coward you bluster

  Like a child you plead

  But the stranger is not for listening

  Not a gentleman any longer

  His coat is ragged, his shirt torn

  Long matted hair worn for breeches

  He takes a step towards you

  He puts his stong hands upon you

  And throws you to the wall

  And smashes your head in pieces there

  Lights go out. A door crashes closed.

  A gale blows through an empty house.

  From the fireplace, ashes fly and

  Hang in the air, glowing silent

  For an eternity, it seems

  Before dropping and vanishing

  Outside there is a howling

  A crying of beasts in panic

 

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