Castle Orchard (16 page)

‘Now Mrs Arthur, we must try to be practical. There is maybe a lawyer or some man used to dealing with your husband’s affairs. Do you have his address? You must ask him about arrangements. He will assist you.’

This startlingly practical notion was as much as Mr Conway could do. He rose to depart, distressed at leaving her alone and promising to return the next day or in the evening.

Phil wandered home from school, dawdling across the meadow. They had told him his mother needed to speak to him. By the time he reached Castle Orchard he had nearly forgotten this. Emmy was playing in the garden. Phil liked Emmy, her intractable will and her solid form. He took her hand and they went indoors together.

Emmy said, ‘Mama.’ She led him to the drawing room where Mrs Arthur sat in a chair, alone and still. Phil ran towards her and said, ‘What is the matter?’

‘You know something is the matter, Phil? Yes, something is the matter. It’s your father. He has had an accident. He fell from the box of a coach.’

‘Is he much hurt?’

‘Yes. He is more than hurt. He has died, dearest.’

‘Died?’ Phil chewed the word over in his mind. He knew what it meant. You died and you were gone. In England they put you in the ground, but the soldiers of the Spanish wars were not always put in the ground.

He said, half-aware of his own confusion, ‘There are no wolves.’

‘No, Phil, no wolves. But why?’

‘To eat him.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘He will have a coffin like my baby brother, Matthew, a wooden box to put him in with the lid shut down.’

‘Yes.’ Mrs Arthur was surprised at what Phil remembered. It was rare for them to speak of Matthew. It remained too painful.

Phil said, ‘I suppose my father being dead doesn’t matter very much. Are you sad or happy? I will look after Emmy and you. Well, I’ll try, and if I remember.’

Emmy, who had or had not been listening, now said, ‘Will the money Papa always took be yours now?’

One could trust Emmy to come straight to the point, but how did the child know about such a thing?

‘I am not sure, darling. Possibly not.’

‘Shall we have to wait and see?’

It was a matter of waiting and seeing, for Mrs Arthur heard nothing. She felt in a state of limbo. Her brotherin-law arrived in the Westcott Park barouche, tall, dark, handsome, reliable, the epitome of solid virtues. Why had she not married such a man? He asked her questions. He would go to London for her and attend to the funeral if that would be as she wished. He wanted to know if Johnny had left a will and what her financial position would be. Mrs Arthur, over the years, had made light of her situation: trustees had looked after the estate, herself and the children, but when Arthur became thirty the trustees lost their jurisdiction and chaos descended. John Westcott, aware of this, knew the situation was perhaps not good, but his sister-in-law had, he was sure, a jointure set up by her father and her husband’s father in the event of her becoming a widow, and she agreed this was the case.

She told him of the likely possibility of the estate being sold. He stood over her while she wrote a letter to the lawyers asking if they could clarify her position and then he departed for London. He thought the death of his brother-in-law a great blessing, but it offended his sense of what was proper to confess. Arthur, whom he had barely known, for their paths never crossed, was everything of which he most disapproved – and surely his widow must be better off without him.

In London he learned that Castle Orchard no longer belonged to the Arthurs. He wrote to his sister-in-law accordingly, but pointing out that no one acknowledged being the purchaser, so perhaps it wasn’t true. He gave an account of the funeral and begged her to let him know of what further assistance he could be when she received the lawyer’s answer to her letter. He then retreated to the calm and order of Westcott Park.

Of Captain Allington himself there was no sign, for he had gone into Surrey for the fox hunting.

Mrs Arthur received her brother-in-law’s letter and one from the lawyer at the same time. Annie gave them into her hand while she was walking round the house, wondering if the odd pieces of furniture she had brought to Castle Orchard with her marriage might be considered hers or whether the receivers, whom she expected daily, would take everything.

She opened the letter from the lawyer first, with misgiving, but she was quite unprepared for the contents, which even the wildest of her imaginings had not foreseen.

Mrs Arthur leaned on the table and closed her eyes. Annie ran and put an arm round her, thinking she looked faint, but she rallied sufficiently to read her brother-in-law’s letter, which only confirmed the facts.

‘The news can’t be worse than what it was,’ Annie said, for the servants had been informed that they faced an uncertain future.

‘I think it much worse,’ Mrs Arthur said.

‘Why, how could that be, dear ma’am? Is it the gentlemen coming who will take everything away?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. I must have time to think. I will go outdoors.’

Annie ran to fetch her shawl, a poor threadbare thing of which Annie had better herself.

‘Don’t get cold now, dearie. Annie won’t ever leave you and the dear children, not if she should starve.’ She burst into tears.

Mrs Arthur still determinedly went outdoors. It was cold and blustery. She walked down to the river.

That they must leave Castle Orchard was certain, but why had the lawyer not mentioned her jointure, for surely he must know of that? She must write again. Of course she had known they would probably lose Castle Orchard one way or another, but to think at this very moment they trespassed on it filled her with horror and bewilderment.

Now she looked down at the river. She wished it were spring and that she could gather huge armfuls of lilac or bunches of daffodils, as if in defiance, but the shrivelled leaves on the bough did not inspire her to so extravagant a gesture, and did they not belong to another? Meg, her old dog, had accompanied her and she thought, Even poor Meg will be homeless.

The folly of her youth must punish her for ever: her determination, against all advice, to marry Johnny Arthur. She thought of her father, whom she had loved and defied. How often had she longed for his presence, his dear, calm, kind face and his moderate, clever advice, but he was dead.

At this very moment she lived on charity, the charity of the owner of Castle Orchard. She had no claim to the house, the garden, the servants, even the food she ate. For want of any purpose, she walked along the edge of the river, passed the Philosopher’s Tower and entered the orchard. There were yet a few apples on the trees and she remembered how she and Emmy had been gathering the windfalls in the sun.

Captain Allington, she thought. He is the owner of Castle Orchard, He, of the sweet, perhaps deceptive, smile, for she had noticed it, even though he had only smiled the once, when he had seen her amongst the potatoes. For all his politeness, he was nothing but a gambler too, no better than Johnny, and she lived at his mercy and upon his charity, for it was long past Michaelmas.

In a comfortable posting inn in Surrey, Pride struggled to write to his mother. He acknowledged to himself that he had made a mistake in his previous letter to his only remaining parent, in giving away the information that they were returning to the country for the fox hunting. Had he not made it clear on other occasions that his master was too feeble to get out of bed?

Pride paused here to consider how much of his letter was true. The importance of truth did not loom large with him; he remained indifferent to the passing fib, even if invoking his Maker, but it was sounder policy to speak the truth where possible. He never told Captain Allington a lie, for experience had taught him he could not get away with it. His mother, though as alarming as his master, could more easily be deceived. Pride’s letter gave the usual impression, he hoped, that he was indispensable. He continued:

In the next room Allington was also writing a letter. Hunting was an occupation close to his heart, for was it not an activity that mimicked the alarms of war and forced a man to otherwise forget himself? The added hazard of a weak right knee did nothing to discourage him. He had bathed and now sat in his dressing gown in front of a good fire, a small table pulled up before him, the offending right limb on a footstool, his only acknowledgement that it pained him and hunting made it worse.

Captain Allington was usually decisive. He was not accustomed to confusion. His mind perpetually went to the sunny figure of Mrs Arthur with her faded smock, under the apple trees at Castle Orchard or amongst the vegetables. What was her situation, now that Arthur was dead? Her marriage cannot have been a happy one, but did she cling to loving the man she had married? Did she grieve? Did she have anywhere to go? Had she a jointure, money for herself and her children?

At last he dipped the pen in the ink.

Here Allington came to a halt. He would be expected to express a simple condolence on the death of her husband but he declined to do so. He finished the letter thus inadequately:

He signed it
R. Allington
and sealed it up. He thought, Does she even know it is I that owns Castle Orchard?

The Revd Hubert Conway slowly mounted the steps to the pulpit. It was Sunday afternoon, a little early for Evensong, but the time suited the school dinner-hour. His congregation consisted of Mrs Arthur, many of the inhabitants of Orchardleigh and the thirty boys who attended the rectory school. He thought it unfortunate his Sunday sermons needed to be modified and reduced to accommodate small boys – and some of them his own flesh and blood – who haunted him all week with their mischievous habits.
Suffer the little children . . .
Jesus made reference to the innocence of the child, and though the rector knew the child to be innocent – so long as Christened and therefore purged of Original Sin – he did sometimes wonder how small boys could manifest characteristics that seemed so far from innocent. It was, he surmised, the meandering of youth that knew not where it was bound until directed. Not only did the young mind need directing, but he supposed that of every living soul under his care in the parish. It was, undoubtedly, a tall order.

He took as his text
He that is first shall be last.

‘Be content with your lot,’ he told the congregation. ‘Your reward will be in Heaven. It is as hard for a rich man, remember, to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven, as it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. The Almighty has His place for you, and within the bounds of that place your task is to strive for perfection, not to strive for some elevation for which you were not intended. A menial task well done is of as much value in the eyes of the Lord . . .’

Mrs Arthur had asked Phil if he would prefer to sit with the other boys, but Phil declined. He sat by his mother with a vacant expression on his face. Mrs Arthur had heard most of the rector’s sermons before, for his repertoire was limited, but the text caught her attention. As a camel never could get through the eye of a needle, it seemed the unfortunate rich man was doomed from the start. How was one to view the rapid reversal of one’s position, from comparative comfort, inasmuch as they had enough to eat, to something nearer poverty, needing money to buy Phil boots. Did poverty alter the shape of the camel so it could get through the eye of the needle?