Castle Orchard (25 page)

The letter carried on expressing similar sentiments for several pages. Mrs Arthur folded it up and put it away as Captain Allington walked into the room. Thoughts ran through her head thus: If he has a mistress he cannot be seeing her often, for he has been here six weeks without going further afield than Salisbury – and that not if he can help. She also thought: If he has a taste for foreign actresses, I can’t see why my stepmother thinks he might develop a taste for me, for all he looks at me tenderly from time to time. I dare say he would look on a foreign actress with equal tenderness, if that’s his habit.

She said, ‘Pride says he is making a cloak for me, but I think it must be a mistake and intended for someone else.’

‘No, I intended it for you.’

‘But I must pay for it.’

‘If you insist, at a moment convenient to you, sometime in the future. As it is, you are bound to catch cold.’

‘But why didn’t you ask me?’

‘Because you must have refused. Where are your warm pelisses?’

‘I altered them, turned them. In the end they fell to pieces.’

‘You have a very inadequate wardrobe for the time of year.’

Mrs Arthur said, ‘Please wait here a moment.’

She ran upstairs and fetched her grandmother’s necklace from its hiding place. On returning, she put it into Captain Allington’s hand. He gazed at the seed pearls, the delicate intertwined leaves and the small, sparkling diamonds.

Mrs Arthur said, ‘I have no idea if it is real or not. Paste was fashionable in my grandmother’s time, but being so pretty, it must be worth something. As you intend going to London on my behalf, please will you sell it for me.’

Allington looked speculatively at the necklace. Eventually he said, ‘Was it your mother’s?’

‘My grandmother’s. She gave it to me. She drew me on one side and said, “Your heart rules your head. You are like me, and you’ll get into a scrape.” I was, you see, engaged at the time. She said, “I will give you my necklace, but you must promise me to tell the man you intend to marry that the diamonds are paste. It’s a lie, but no matter.” I made that promise to my grandmother because she was old and I loved her. I wore it that evening and when Johnny came to dine, his eyes lit on it. I had resolved to evade a question rather than tell him a lie, but I immediately said, “They aren’t real,” and I saw how he lost interest. What was that lie I told? A moment of self-preservation? I was ashamed of telling it to this man I loved. The tale of them being rather contrary, I hesitate to think they are real.’

‘Rundell’s can decide. You will think you should not trust me, but we have already discussed this. Trust me you must. I’ll take it to London in a week or so.’

Captain Allington slid the necklace into the large breast pocket Pride always made inside his coats. Mrs Arthur thought he had great dexterity at getting his own way without much argument. If she had a little money from the necklace, such situations could be more easily avoided. She could at least pay for a cloak.

Between Allington’s hunting and the uncertainty of the weather, there had been only a few opportunities for Mrs Arthur to ride, but to do so gave her great pleasure. She supposed she ought to refuse, make excuses, but she never did. Captain Allington would tell her when Dan was due to bring the horses round and she would be ready in her riding habit. Depending on which of the hunters needed exercising, sometimes Dan accompanied them and sometimes they went alone. Either way, Allington would always take a discreet route. All they ever saw was some lone shepherd on the downs, or a solitary man ploughing a long furrow, his horse straining at the collar.

The day following that in which she had entrusted her necklace to his care, they were crossing the ford together and she was thinking about the fact that she was allowing him, against her better judgement, to help her. She knew she would be advised not to trust him, yet she did.

As the horses scrambled out of the water, Captain Allington said, almost as if they continued their previous conversation, ‘I should like to ask you something. How came you to marry Arthur?’

Mrs Arthur hesitated. She thought, How can I tell him that? She then said, ‘You will think the worst of me.’

‘Allow me to judge that for myself.’

‘I thought him the most magical, the most beautiful, the most original, the most amusing, the most poetic . . . why ever did I think he was that?’ For a moment she was laughing at herself, but then she sighed.

‘My mother died when I was young. My father remarried when I was ten years old. My stepmother was rigid with correct conduct and household management. I am, at this moment, transgressing one of her rules: no lady should be so immodest as to allow herself to be the subject of a conversation. I was as defiant and naughty as I could be. My father, whom I loved and who loved me, lectured me. I didn’t see why he needed another woman in his life other than me. I tried, occasionally, to be good but I was resentful, misunderstood and therefore wilful. As I grew, my stepmother endeavoured, more and more, to take me in hand, to teach me this and that of housekeeping which, though scorned at the time, has certainly been useful since.

‘I think, on reflection, I was not so wicked but I ran about like a tomboy, very active – even my hair, such a mass of curls, out of my stepmother’s control, though she attempted to batten it down with clips and ribbons and tame it with curling papers. I was inclined never to do as I was told, but in company I was shy, so appearances were kept up. My stepmother used to whisper about me to her friends whilst I was compelled to sit with them, and they would look my way and sigh and shake their heads. I was, I suppose, very unhappy.

‘Well, you won’t want to excuse me for what followed, but you asked me to tell you, so I shall.’ Here Mrs Arthur stopped to look at Allington, but as he said nothing, she continued.

‘It was the April of 1815, the year Napoleon escaped from Elba, as I need not tell you. I had a cousin in the Army. He was my best friend, like a brother, seeing I had none. He came to bid us goodbye on his way to join his regiment, with three or four other officers travelling with him. A uniform is a very seductive thing. Some wore scarlet and some wore blue. We dined, there were friends and neighbours; we wanted to dance, which my stepmother permitted. My cousin wanted to waltz but this she wouldn’t allow – she was shocked to death – so he contented himself with playing the music on the pianoforte. I didn’t know how to waltz. Out of naughtiness and also, viewed from afar, inclination, I went out into the April garden with one of those officers. We could hear the music very well. He showed me how to waltz and then he kissed me. I knew no better; it is what I should have expected. Did I let him kiss me? Yes I did. It is, on the whole, a mutual occupation. As it was, those young officers all went away at the crack of dawn and we never saw them again. I didn’t even know their names, though I suppose we were told them at the time. Captain one and Lieutenant another. My cousin Charles was killed at Waterloo. His death expunged everything else from my mind. How terrible it was, to see his name amongst those wounded or killed, all printed so neat in the
Gazette
. Perhaps all of those officers from that night were killed. How it haunted me at the time.’

She said no more. They were riding side by side down the length of a shady lane, old trees knotted and twisted on each side of them and meeting overhead. She glanced at Allington, but he was looking fixedly ahead. Was he shocked, or was it the mention of Waterloo that disturbed him, for surely Waterloo, where he had so nearly lost his life, must evoke, for him, memories best put aside?

At the end of the lane he opened a gate and after closing it he turned to her, saying, ‘And then?’

‘I told my stepmother of the kiss. I was, you see, really alarmed at my own conduct and extremely innocent. Can you imagine the sensation I caused, kissing a soldier in the garden? Of course, I was deeply relieved to know my transgression was to bring me nothing worse than dire disgrace. I was totally confined, made a prisoner. My father was wretched, I was wretched and even after we had the sad, sad news of Charles’s death, my stepmother didn’t relent. She said I would never be married, et cetera, et cetera.

‘Shortly afterwards, Jonathan Arthur came into our lives. He was staying with an elderly relation, a friend of my father’s who was to teach him estate management, or that was the idea. His father had only agreed to pay his debts on the condition he stayed in Devonshire, out of harm’s way, for six months. He had been sent down from Oxford. He burst upon our little rural retreat like a gilded butterfly. I think the fact that I was in disgrace, considered wild, a rebel, was what attracted him to me. I was not allowed to dine anywhere but at home, went to no assemblies, was seen nowhere but, as a relation of my father’s friend, my stepmother could not refuse him the house. She didn’t make him very welcome, but this he viewed as a challenge. Eventually even she was charmed by his prattle. Now I really was in love, but he never would have married me had not everyone been so against it. His father vaguely hoped I might be a steadying influence, though my own family did not see me as such. In the end, everyone relented and hoped for the best. Besides, he was to inherit Castle Orchard. It was a perfectly good match.’

Their road ran uphill and emerged onto the edge of the downs into the mild, wintery sunshine.

Allington said, ‘And how long was it before you realised your mistake?’

‘About three weeks. I was, you see, immediately expecting Phil. I was unwell. Johnny went to London. He came back three months later. I was even more unwell. Oh, the wretchedness of those days and months, I can’t tell you. My father-in-law set up trusts and died. We moved into Castle Orchard. Johnny came back for that. I thought he might alter but I was eight months’ then and I had no appeal for him at all. Once Phil was born, I tried further reconciliation. Sometimes it worked for a while, but really it was hopeless. I settled to make my life around the children and Castle Orchard. It has been lonely but not without its joys and compensations. What I paid for that kiss! My whole life, but that’s not really so. I expect I would have married him just the same. What made Eve take the apple in the Garden of Eden? I had always wondered. Now I knew. I suppose soldiers are opportunists.’

She thought, comfortably, it didn’t matter what she said to him. She looked to see if she really had shocked him, but perhaps a man who had seen so much of the world was not easily shocked. He merely said, ‘Yes, soldiers are opportunists.’

In the dark of the boot room Robert leaned forward and said, ‘Captain Allington told us about Badejos. He told us of the escalades and the bastions, the
chevaux de frise
and how the men drowned.’

‘Told yer of Badejos, did ’e?’

‘You don’t say it like him.’

‘We can’t all be speaking yer foreign tongue. He ain’t no business telling of Badejos, not in no foreign tongue, nor in yer King’s English.’

‘Why not? You told us about it yourself.’

‘Yer little sisters, yer mothers – soldiers wouldn’t spare none of ’em. Can’t tell yer what they do, for yer too young. They had us strung up in the streets. Fancy seeing yer mates dangling there and yer too drunk to know it ain’t a vision. That stopped us, but we was wore out anyhow. San Sebastian now – burned flat by the Frog Eaters, the Frenchies, only seven houses left upright and they had the sauce to say it was us. Them sieges either kill yer or cook yer, and yer boils right over like yer pan o’ milk.’

‘Was Captain Allington at Waterloo?’

‘’Ow should I know? Lost me eye and me leg at Toulouse. Still alive though, more than can be said for some. Spanish Allington, that’s what we called him. Yer can’t be in the Army without yer leg.’

‘Why did you call him Spanish Allington?’

‘Speak Spanishy, look Spanishy.’ Jackson paused and then said, distinctly, ‘He died at Waterloo. They told me that. When the regiment came back. I saw me mates, one or two, and they said he died.’

Robert leaned forward and gave Phil a jerk by the arm. Somewhere a bell rang.

‘Get on with yer then, yer varmints, bothering a man.’

Walking slowly towards the classroom, Robert kept hold of Phil – Phil whom he believed had the ear of Allington, who saw him every day.

‘Was Captain Allington really at Waterloo?’

‘Yes,’ Phil said, disconsolate. ‘Pride says so. I told you that.’

‘We can’t tell anything from what Jackson says. Are you sure?’

Phil never thought himself sure about anything, so he made no reply. Eventually he said yes because he thought it was what Robert wanted to hear.

‘He must tell us about it, just as he told us about the siege. You must ask him.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I couldn’t. He doesn’t talk about it.’

‘If you don’t ask him, I’ll—’

They reached the classroom. Robert went in without finishing what he meant to threaten, and Phil broke loose. He ran down the corridor and out of the rectory door. In a moment he was crossing the meadow, clattering down the wooden steps and flying across the garden.

Mrs Arthur found him in the hall clasping Emmy to his meagre chest.

‘What are you doing, darling? It’s schooltime.’

‘I came to see Emmy. The Frog Eaters might have her.’

Mrs Arthur said, ‘Now, dearest, if they have a taste for frogs, I don’t suppose they would fancy Emmy. If you mean the French, here there are no French.’

Phil would have liked to correct her. Even when he was not himself the French, the French were everywhere, burning villages, killing little girls, putting their bayonets into wounded soldiers. The French hid in the woods by the drive, with their blue coats, their muskets, their fierce moustaches, their cold, foreign eyes and their hairy knapsacks.

Emmy said, ‘Bang! You can shoot the French, Phil.’ She knew what games the boys played.

‘If you shoot a Frenchman, do you know what you do?’ Phil asked her, and she shook her head.

‘You eat his biscuit. He has biscuits with holes in them so they can thread on a string. You eat his biscuit and drink his rum, that’s what you do.’