Castle Orchard (13 page)

‘Have you come far?’ she asked.

‘Yesterday from London. Today from Salisbury.’

She noted, uneasily, the odd, abrupt change in him. He looked ill. She said, ‘Did you come to see the Philosopher’s Tower?’

He managed, she thought with difficulty, to smile. He said carefully, his voice now strained, ‘It had not been uppermost in my mind.’

His indignation, his fury with Arthur, was combined with a satirical amusement at Arthur’s at last getting the better of him, his ability to wreak his revenge. What was he to do? Who was to tell this woman at his side, who was bidding him leave the apples, who was taking her little girl by the hand, her actual position? And what exactly was that position? He fumbled for the reins of his horse. The low autumn sun was in his eyes. He saw things strangely. The sensations in his head, the dreaded sensations, were not new to him nor induced by the sun, but they were more sudden than usual.

Mrs Arthur wondered if he was going to faint. She certainly did not see how he could get back on his horse. In the distance she saw one of the two boys who worked in the garden. She called out, ‘Sam, come and take this gentleman’s horse. Put it in a stable. Do what is necessary. Call Annie.’

Allington said, ‘I could take the horse . . . I think . . . I’m very sorry but I will have to lie down. Anywhere in the dark will do.’

Mrs Arthur sat in the drawing room at Castle Orchard. She was mending a little tear in her gown with a patch of the same cloth, but the patch was brighter than the gown. The drawing room was long and low – ill proportioned, she knew. There was a large fireplace, ancient chairs, a sofa and cabinets full of china and bits and pieces. It had a genial untidiness, Emmy’s doll, a cut-out card soldier, a bowl of quinces and another of apples and pears. There was an ancient spinet and a watercolour of the Philosopher’s Tower. The sunny windows looked across the lawn to the river. It was a charming room, full of warmth and pleasing shades, but shabby.

Annie, a redoubtable, indispensable middle-aged feature of her life, put her head round the door. ‘Mr Conway to see you, dearie.’

‘Which Mr Conway, Annie?’

‘Not parson, ma’am.’ Annie slipped unconsciously between affection and formality when addressing her mistress.

A fair-haired, boyish-looking man, though probably forty years old, entered the room. He was inclined to play the brooding lover, to which his physiognomy was not suited, as she told him from time to time. She could not take him seriously, for though he was a widower with two little sons, twins, what was she? She was a married woman, as he knew full well.

His brother was the rector, the Reverend Hubert Conway. This was Mr Stewart Conway, who had the management of the school. It was to this school Phil went, his mother thought without enthusiasm, every day, to be prepared for entry to Eton or Winchester, though there was not the two hundred pounds required to send him to either of these places for even a single year, a fact constantly on her mind. She thought a tutor would suit Phil better, but there was an awkwardness in having a tutor in the house when one was a woman on one’s own and, just as crucial, no means of paying one.

She disengaged her hand from Mr Conway’s and said, ‘Why are you not in class today?’

‘Because I have sufficient ushers, as you know quite well. Though I hope you think I do my duty, I have at times more pressing engagements than making little boys understand parameters. Shall we take a turn in the garden? It is very mild. Can I ring for Annie to fetch you a hat?’

‘No, I want no hat. If I wanted it I should fetch it myself, for Annie has plenty to do.’

‘I wish you would take more care of yourself.’

‘You mean you wish I would take more care of my complexion.’ She smiled at him, ‘It is the least of my worries.’

‘Could I but share those worries and have the burden of them.’

‘It would be very agreeable if somebody did. However, I think it can’t be you.’

They went outdoors and started to stroll in the direction of the river. The little grey hound walked between them, pressing herself to her mistress’s skirts. She was jealous; she did not care for Mr Conway.

Mrs Arthur said, ‘You look after Phil, and he is one of my worries.’ She immediately wondered if he did look after Phil.

‘He is a worrying child. Could I but say otherwise. If he could be brought to concentrate . . . however, it was not Phil I came here to discuss.’

Mrs Arthur knew exactly what Mr Conway had come to discuss.

He continued, ‘My dear Mrs Arthur, sadly I have no right to care for you, and he who should care for you, whose care of you should be paramount in his heart, shamelessly neglects and misuses you.’

Mrs Arthur, who had heard Mr Conway make similar statements at regular intervals, thought of her husband. He had come down at Michaelmas, gone directly to the agent and this time left her not a single penny. She had a little put by that would pay Annie and Cook and the two lads who worked outdoors. Without the home farm, she thought they would starve.

‘I dare say the care of me is
not
paramount in his heart,’ Mrs Arthur said, despite herself suppressing a smile at his fanciful use of language.

Mr Conway now said, ‘Your reputation is sacred to me.’

She thought Mr Conway much the most likely person to endanger her reputation, but was glad he was coming to the point of his visit.

‘Dear Mrs Arthur, it is said you have a stranger here, a gentleman, I suppose, though I doubt he can be, for else he would not have inflicted himself on a single woman.’

‘How rumour flies. Yes, I harbour a stranger. How could I not? My husband sent him. It’s not that so much, but more that he’s sick. Also, I believe Johnny deceived him for I had the impression he didn’t previously know of my existence.’

‘All the same, it’s outrageous. Why didn’t he leave immediately? What’s the matter with him?’

‘I believe, from the way his servant speaks, he has a headache.’

‘A headache? I never heard anything so preposterous.’

‘His servant, a little talkative fellow, was touchingly aggrieved at having temporarily lost sight of him.’

‘Why, he is probably escaped from a madhouse and this servant his keeper.’

‘I think him too little to be anyone’s keeper. Captain Allington is a man of average size and though he limps, he looks quite strong.’

‘And what is his appearance?’

Mrs Arthur, who was not above teasing Mr Conway, said, ‘I never saw such a handsome man before, and very civil. He took off his coat and helped Emmy and I pick apples.’

‘Took off his coat?’ Mr Conway expostulated, ‘He can be no gentleman!’

‘He has the manner of a gentleman.’ In order to prevent Mr Conway giving her a dissertation on the impropriety of a gentleman taking off his coat, she continued, ‘But after a bit it was obvious he was unwell. Annie took him upstairs to the Blue Room. She said, he would do everything for himself but he asked her if she would draw the curtains and bring him a bowl. He wanted no dinner, which was as well as I should have been hard put to know what to give him to eat at such short notice. That was the day before yesterday. I haven’t seen him since. Yesterday afternoon he was tracked down by a valet and a groom.’

‘A gentleman of means then, if he travels with two servants. I dare say they are paid to look out to him. Remember, madness is very deceptive. He could appear perfectly sane without being in the least so.’

‘Perhaps we all could.’

‘Mrs Arthur, I beg you to take me more seriously. He’s probably hiding from creditors, or worse, the law. You tell me your husband sent him, which I regret is no recommendation. I had better speak to him on your behalf, tell him he must be gone by nightfall. I shall do it immediately.’

Mrs Arthur shook her head. She said, ‘No.’

‘Why not? It would be most inappropriate for you to go up to him yourself if he is skulking in a bedroom.’

‘No. He isn’t well. I thought I’d made that clear. I can’t refuse him hospitality. As for his being a lunatic, his groom is a deaf-mute, at least I think he is, and I am sure I shouldn’t choose one as a minder had a relative of mine been in need of such a person. He has stabled the horses, swept the yard and got in the firewood. One can’t tell him anything so he does what he likes, I suppose.’

‘Oh dear, it is all very odd and peculiar. I should never forgive myself if some harm came to you.’

‘I shall be sure to send Annie to fetch you if I think myself in danger.’

‘Now you are teasing me. It is unkind when you know how much I’m attached to you and how I wish your circumstances different.’

‘Seeing the vulnerability of my position, you shouldn’t express such sentiments. Besides which, you might turn my head, always considered a poorly thing for females.’

Mr Conway accepted the rebuke meekly but he made a last bid to be allowed to at least interview Captain Allington.

‘Have you ever had a megrim, Mr Conway?’ Mrs Arthur asked.

‘Certainly not. It is a thing for the nervous or delicate.’

‘A dear friend of mine when I was a schoolgirl had megrim. She told me it was as if the devil poked red-hot irons in her head.’

‘Dear me, what a thing for a child to say.’

‘It certainly impressed me at the time. Now, be a dear and return to the classroom, even if only to encourage Phil to concentrate.’

Mr Conway took his dismissal in the best spirit he could. When he had gone Mrs Arthur stood and gazed in the river, for they had walked that far. There was an abundance of weed beneath the rush of the water, brilliant green.

Pride reeled under the astonishment of that Mr Arthur downstairs being a married man and not even Mr Emill seeming to know it! Now he waited impatiently, nervously, for Mrs Arthur to come indoors. When she did he approached her and said, ‘Please excuse me, ma’am, but I’m bothered about my master.’

‘Does he need a doctor?’

‘Oh no, ma’am, doctors never do anything for him but make concoctions which he never cares to take. He says doctors don’t know nothing and bleed him till he’s weak as a kitten. He won’t be bled, not ever. They say it’s nerves but my master never did have any of them.’ Pride began to work himself up. ‘Some doctors want his hair thinned, others want it growed. Some want him to take laudanum and henbane in a great big basin of coffee. Laudanum has its point but the coffee would be the end of him. Some say valerian, hartshorn, henbane awashed down with peppermint water. All we does in the end is put a cold rag on his head and wait for it to finish. Anyhows, he couldn’t hold none of it down. A sip of water is too much sometimes. That’s what I was coming to. When he’s getting a bit over it, I give him chicken broth. He’s got to have something, I think, or he starves. Now Master says I’m not to trouble the kitchen or inconvenience anyone, and he says it now when he’s ill and don’t say nothing usually, so he really means it, and if he knowed I’d come to you, I’d get the sharp side of his tongue. I wouldn’t trouble no one and I can make the broth myself.’ Pride looked at her like a dog waiting for a pat or a kick. He added, ‘I never am so bold as when I wants something for him.’

Mrs Arthur said, ‘Of course he can have chicken broth. We will have the chicken boiled for dinner. Has Captain Allington always been so affected?’

‘Oh no, ma’am.’ Pride looked pathetic. ‘Indeed not. It was the wound in his head that did it. The surgeons said he’d never survive it, such a hole as it was; or worse, he’d be simple. I knew he weren’t simple even if he did think we was in Spain when we wasn’t. That bloody battle, begging your pardon, that bloody battle was the worst battle in the world. I wish it had never been, even if it did for Boney.’

Pride searched vaguely for a handkerchief and then wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He concluded more cheerfully, with the words, ‘His hair growed over it nicely, though it’s a mite pied. I never thought it would.’

The following afternoon, Stewart Conway again walked over the meadow to repeat the conversation he had had with Mrs Arthur the previous morning with the addition of Allington’s servants eating her out of house and home, and she saying she had not seen her visitor, who was still sick upstairs, so the circumstances had not altered.

The day after that, Captain Allington had gone.

Two days later, Mrs Arthur was puzzling whether or not he could be made a suitable matter to fill the blank page of her letter to her sister, Louisa, so safely and contentedly married to the dependable John Westcott, the respectable heir to Westcott Park. Mrs Arthur was fond of her sister but the absurdities of her own marriage, her constant concerns over making ends meet, her anxiety for her children’s future, were all things so alien to Louisa, so beyond her understanding that she was, as usual, skating around the subject. Indeed, the idea of Louisa’s husband sending a strange man to visit Westcott Park while Louisa was alone there, not that she ever was alone there, would be beyond either Louisa or John’s imagination. The only thing John Westcott shared with his brother-in-law was his Christian name.

After the preliminary greetings and enquiries after the little girls, she wrote, for something had to be written, a light-hearted description of the sudden and unexpected visit of a stranger; his illness; Mr Conway’s conviction that he was a madman escaping his minders and likely to murder them all in their beds, that being the popular place in which to be murdered; and then his equally sudden departure.

Mrs Arthur, accosted by Mr Stewart Conway later in the day, when she was walking across the meadow, was able to say to him, ‘You will no doubt be pleased to hear that Captain Allington departed before breakfast. We are none the wiser as to why he came.’

Arthur knew, one way or another, much about George Brummell, though it was nine years since the celebrated dandy had fled to Calais, evading his creditors by means of a chaise and four. He did not particularly admire Brummell’s style, for he thought it dull in its restraint, for had not Brummell put the starch into neckcloths? He did, however, admire Brummell for his erstwhile power and position. Would anyone remember
him
, Johnny Arthur, visit him and talk of him, nine years on, when he too would be living in discreet retirement across the water?