Castle Orchard (33 page)

Mrs Arthur hastened into the room. She embraced both children in turn, holding back her tears of relief in order not to alarm them. She asked, ‘But how did you get in the river?’

Phil said nothing but Emmy burst out crying. ‘Jacky and James threw Dolly in the river. I went to get her, but the water is deep. Captain Allington says I am punished for I was naughty to go to the river.’

Mrs Arthur looked at Allington. He spoke severely. ‘That is what I said. By her disobedience she nearly drowned herself and Phil as well.’

‘Phil came in the water and held my head,’ Emmy said, between her tears. ‘Dolly is gone, she is drowned. I won’t never go to the river again, I promise, I promise.’

‘Phil, darling, is that what you did?’ Mrs Arthur asked.

‘Yes. I went in the water.’

Mrs Arthur put her arms round him and now she wept as much as Emmy.

Phil said, ‘Don’t cry. I’m all right.’ He spoke stiffly, almost awkwardly, slowly sipping at the warm milk Annie had given him.

Allington left the room, left them all alone together and went himself to change before continuing the business of the day. It came on to rain.

Mrs Arthur stayed indoors and played games with the children to distract and amuse them.

Phil played the games to satisfy his mother and occupy Emmy, but he was subdued. He knew his mother thought he was brave and that he had done the right thing, but his mother could be relied on to think well of him. Captain Allington had said nothing, so should he have done something less silly as he was both afraid of the water and unable to swim?

Captain Allington did not return but he came in after dinner as he had the previous evening. He sat down at the table. He had with him a piece of paper and a pencil and straight away began to draw a map and talk to Phil at the same time.

‘Here is France, here is Spain, and here is Portugal. Here, to the north-east of San Sebastian, further up the coast, the Bidassoa spills out into the sea. On this side of it is Spain, on that side of it, France. We have spent the months preceding October 1813 pushing the French north through Spain, but now we reach the Pyrenees, where we don’t wish to winter. It’s too high, too cold. The Bidassoa is a formidable barrier at its mouth. The French believe it impassable. They concentrate much of their defences elsewhere, but the Spanish shrimp fishers have been consulted and we are informed exactly where, at low tide, the river may be crossed. The Fifth Division conceal themselves behind an embankment here, opposite Andaya. Spry’s Portuguese and Lord Aylmer’s Brigade are posted in the ditch, here at Fuenterabia. There are further troops concealed higher up, above the broken bridge of Behobia, here.

‘Our tents have been left standing and our campfires burning so as to deceive the enemy. At seven o’clock in the morning on the seventh we leave, in stealthy silence, our places of concealment. There is half a mile of sand which we traverse in two columns. Not a sound is heard. We cross the low-water channel. A rocket goes up, here, from the steeple of Fuenterabia. It is a signal for the artillery, here at San Marcial, to open fire and cover the troops who are to ford the river higher up, above the bridge of Behobia. Seven columns now go forward all at once, some plunging straight into the river, others still snaking across the heavy sands.

‘The river is icy cold and chest high. Muskets are held above the head to keep them dry. Not a shot is fired by the startled French until the further banks are safely reached. The Fifth Division, at least, have crossed from Spain to France.’

Allington paused to look at Phil’s face. He said, ‘Now
there
is a tale of crossing a river, a mixture of courage and ingenuity. The latter is as much of importance as the former, but the most dangerous position in the field is the most sought and the greatest honour attached to it.’

Phil allowed himself to breathe out. He thought of the soldiers wondering, all the while with the current a-tugging and pulling, when the French would see them and shoot them all down in the water. Their bodies would have tossed and turned and gone out to sea, so much red coat and red blood for the fishes to eat. Despite that, it was possible to be courageous and do one’s duty, to go in the water to rescue Emmy. He smiled at Captain Allington.

Emmy appeared in her dressing gown. She went straight to Captain Allington and said, ‘I want to ask something. Why is it wrong for me to go in the water to get Dolly and not wrong for Phil to go in the water to get me?’

‘I dare say your dolly was precious but your mother will make a new one. You we can’t replace.’

Emmy clambered determinedly onto his lap. She said, a little sleepily, ‘The new dolly won’t be the same as the last. Say me a poem.’

‘Certainly not. You should be in bed.’

Emmy knew he was no longer cross with her.

Phil thought, Emmy is never afraid and she charms Captain Allington. It’s because she looks like Mother, ever so much, though smaller and rounder. I have to get in the river before he approves of me, and who do I look like? I look like my father and he wasn’t any use at all.

Mrs Arthur said, ‘Come along, Emmy. I will take you up to bed. Captain Allington will want his cigar.’

‘This evening,’ Allington said, after they had left, ‘it is my intention, Phil, to take a glass of wine with you.’ He immediately poured half an inch of wine into a glass and gave it to Phil, before pouring out an equally small amount for himself.

Phil, suddenly realising his intentions, said, shocked, ‘But you mustn’t drink any wine. It will give you one of your heads.’

‘Perhaps such a small amount won’t affect me. I intend to take the risk. It’s in tribute to you.’

‘No, please, you’re not to do it. All right, you must drink so little wine you hardly taste it.’ Phil dipped his finger in the glass and dabbed it against Allington’s lips. ‘There, that’s all you need do. Now I will drink some of mine . . . why, it’s quite disgusting.’

He gazed at Allington with his wide blue eyes and Allington was reminded of Johnny Arthur, but Arthur would never have gone in the river to rescue anybody.

Phil said, ‘You won’t take any more, will you? I should very much dislike it if you did, though I understand it was to please me. But I’ll tell you something. I am not so afraid of the river as I was. I mean, it didn’t drown me this time, did it? I felt that it could.’

Allington said, ‘You must respect it. Why don’t you learn to swim?’

Phil thought if Captain Allington would teach him to swim he would learn it. Was he not hitting the punching bag every day with his hands in Dan’s gloves and riding Smokey Joe and making him canter?

By the time Mrs Arthur returned, Captain Allington had gone back down to the lodge.

Phil said, laughing, delighted, ‘Captain Allington took a glass of wine with me.’

April was passing by. The hunters had long since been put out to grass. Dan had little to do but occasionally saddle one up so he might escort the long-tailed grey for the sake of taking out Mrs Arthur. Captain Allington did not go with them. He spent hours at his desk in the morning room. It was as though he had set himself some particular task, to be completed at a given time. If he came up in the evening, it was to return to work. Mrs Arthur thought he withdrew himself from their society inch by inch. She tried to contemplate her future, to think of Westcott Park.

Pride said to Annie, ‘Asking for trouble, the master is. No rest, no rest, no rest. It’s not good for him.’

In the last week of April, Captain Allington went to London. Though he did not say why he was going, he told them he would return for May Day. Orchardleigh had a maypole in the meadow; May Day was celebrated with a feast, consisting of a roasted pig and a barrel of ale, provided by Castle Orchard. The children from the village practised their steps for the maypole dancing. Emmy ran off to join them, seizing a ribbon for herself.

Phil was a hero at school, which astonished him. ‘I couldn’t let her drown, could I, my own little sister?’ he would repeat. He went off in the mornings willingly. Robert Conway evaded him. It crossed Phil’s mind, though without any feelings of enthusiasm, that he could hit Robert just as he hit the punching bag, though Robert was bigger than him. He now hit Dan as well as the punching bag, and Dan pretended to be very much hurt.

At length Robert did approach him, just as he was going home, on the very last day of April. He thrust into Phil’s arms a large, awkward parcel and told him it was his. He said, ‘I can’t keep it now. It hurts me to look at it. I never want to see it any more. It’s as my father preaches in the pulpit: the first shall be the last and the last shall be the first. Well, I’m last now, so you can have this.’

Puzzled, Phil laboured back to Castle Orchard and was just entering the house when he saw the britchka on the carriage sweep and Captain Allington stepping down from it.

Phil said, without preliminaries, ‘Robert gave me this.’

‘But do you now know what it is?’

‘No.’

They entered the hall together. Phil put his parcel down on the table and undid the strings. There was the jacket of rifle green, with the black velvet collar and cuffs, the elaborate swirled and curled corded silk; the three rows of spherical silver buttons, the crimson sash, the shako with the cut feather and the glass in the leather pouch.

Allington watched Phil’s reverential gaze, the tracing of his finger over the convolutions of the cord, his delicate counting of the buttons and the touching of the whistle.

‘But I can’t keep it,’ he said.

‘Is that what you think?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then pack it up and send it back.’

‘Robert said it hurt him to look at it.’

‘He is punishing himself,’ Allington said. ‘Doesn’t he deserve to be punished?’

‘Not so much as this. Anyway, it was my fault for being so afraid of the water.’

‘No, he behaved disgracefully. I am glad to think he knows it. It was not only that he bullied you, he might even have killed you. What would your poor mother have done then?’

Phil said, ‘Yes, I need to be here to look after my mother.’

The evidence being scanty for Phil ever having looked after his mother, Allington thought of that other child and mother.
Don’t forget your prayer book
.
Where are your gloves? Here are violets to pin on your gown. I picked them in the hedge.

Sadness stole over him. He watched Phil, his gaze now returned to the uniform and said, after a moment’s thought, ‘Perhaps this is not really Robert’s to give away. It may have been given into his care but it belongs to the family. Conduct such as his should be nipped in the bud. There is a type of officer who bullies his fellows, anyone who will be bullied, and he bullies the men. They’re insufferable. But Phil, one should not reject what amounts to an apology. Keep the glass. That will be punishment enough. You could take the whistle, but that is part of the uniform whereas the glass is not. Tell him from me it’s not too late to mend his ways.’

Phil took the telescope from its pouch and going to the door, put it to his eye. He said, ‘Think what was seen – the enemy, tiny-wee in the distance, the Eagles of the French . . . the bayonets shining through the cornfields . . . Mother and Emmy are picking flowers.’

Mrs Arthur came downstairs, prepared to attend some part of the May Day festivities, which would commence in the evening, and found Mr Stewart Conway in the hall.

‘You are a stranger here,’ she said, taking him through to the drawing room.

‘I’m not welcome, as you well know. I see Captain Allington has returned. He doesn’t encourage visitors – even the children are banned.’

‘For that there was good reason.’

‘But what was the reason?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you choose to believe in it?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Because Captain Allington said so?’

‘He is not the sort of man to tell a fib. Either way, your boys, Jacky and James, feel themselves exempt.’

‘I came to apologise for their naughtiness, throwing Emmy’s doll in the river. If your children had drowned because of it, what would I have done? I never could have forgiven myself. It’s made me think how out of hand they are. They need a mother and I must marry. You know perfectly well I’ve long wished to marry you, but lack of means has prevented me.’ Mr Conway rushed headlong into his theme, unable to sit though Mrs Arthur was offering him a chair and sitting down herself.

‘Now, I think, with the school doing quite well, and you being bound to have something of your own, we surely could manage. I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought, for one cannot always permit one’s heart to rule one’s head, but indeed, I don’t think I could allow anyone but yourself to take the place of my dear Amelia. You must know how I have loved you for many a year, though it was more a sin than anything else, while you were a wife rather than a widow.’

Mrs Arthur said, ‘But what if I have no money of my own?’

‘But you will have. When are you to know?’

‘Now, today, tomorrow. Captain Allington told me he would have the details at the beginning of May. He returned from London yesterday, but whether or no he went on my behalf, he never said.’

‘You are too trusting. He may take what money you have. We know nothing of the man and I deeply regret your long sojourn under his roof. I see how it came about, but it was wrong. A woman’s virtue, her reputation, is her armour. A respectable marriage to me will cure it all. Of course I regret the gossip, but it will be forgotten. I know he lives in the lodge, but who would believe it?’

‘The slippery mire of scandal and gossip . . .’ Mrs Arthur sighed. ‘Johnny had already exposed me to it in a manner more painful than anything Captain Allington has done. I dare say I was unwise not to go to Westcott Park, yet I can’t regret the decision.’

‘Nor I, for it would have taken you from me.’

‘I would have been less conveniently placed, it is true,’ Mrs Arthur replied.

‘Now you’re teasing me. It isn’t the moment.’

‘I suppose a woman should always be flattered by a proposal.’

Conway stepped forward and endeavoured, without quite succeeding, to seize her hand. ‘You are crying,’ he said, noticing that her eyes had filled with tears. ‘I don’t see how that could be necessary. I so wish to make you happy. I don’t believe you have ever loved me, but you will grow to do so. We are not children. Of course, it would be a worry if you disliked me.’