Castle Orchard (2 page)

He ran as fast as he could up through the orchard, swinging his stick as if slashing at the buttercups with a sword. He reached the unkempt lawn and ran indoors.

Later that day, Robert Conway, a well-built, square-faced lad of twelve years old, the rector’s eldest son, retreated to his own room in the rectory. It was not much of a room, but his own. If your home was a rectory as well as a school, having your own room was an object of importance. His younger brothers slept in the dormitories. Standing at the window, a spyglass in his hand, of the big house he saw nothing but the chimneys, for it was full summer; the surrounding trees were in leaf, and even the garden, such garden as there was, lay hidden by a tall dark hedge.

He had no need of the spyglass to see a woman and a small boy, Phil and his mother, walk out from the garden gate and slowly cross the meadow, hand in hand, the thin, little old dog following behind them. Robert’s expression changed from one of nothing in particular to one of derision. He thought Phil too old to be holding his mother’s hand. There too was the little girl, meandering like a plump bumblebee from one meadow flower to the next. Robert knew nothing of girls. His knowledge was all of boys – the boys in the school, his two young brothers, his cousins younger still – that even such a little girl was almost disturbing. The sensation was dispelled in a moment and his expression deepened to a greater mockery at the sudden appearance of his uncle, Stewart Conway, his father’s younger brother, the schoolmaster, hastening, hastening across the meadow to intercept, to walk and talk. This namby-pamby walking and talking with a woman, a small boy and a little girl was surely food for scorn. Was there also something irregular in the proceeding? Robert, after all the rector’s son, had, at least in theory, a correct knowledge of right and wrong. His uncle, like his father, was a widower, presumably able to walk and talk with whomever he liked, so he could not quite pin what might be amiss.

He turned away. On his bed lay his treasure, his dearest possession. Another uncle, an uncle he had never known, had died of wounds received in Spain. He had been a lieutenant in the 95
^th
Rifles and no regiment could have pleased his nephew more, apart from one of a Light Dragoon. He had come home to die. His mother had kept his uniform and all his military effects but, just before her own death, she had given them to her eldest grandson with the words, ‘I know, my dear Robert, you will revere them as you should.’

He had taken the uniform from its cedarwood trunk and laid the dark green jacket out on his bed because it was the tenth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, so what better day could there be for gazing lovingly on the black velvet collar and cuffs, the black silk cord that lavishly adorned the cloth, looped in horizontal rows between the silver ball buttons, of which there were three rows, rising from waist to shoulder and waist to throat, twenty-five in each. He unfolded the tasselled sash of crimson silk and fingered the black leather shoulder belt, the two silver chains that held the whistle and the lion’s head boss. He dedicately touched the silver bugle, the regimental badge, on the shako with the cut green feather. He carefully slid the spyglass to its full extent and, placing it to his eye, again turned to the window. What was he to see? Not, he thought, the chimneys of Castle Orchard, not his Uncle Stewart or Phil and his mother, but rank upon rank of the enemy, mustering on a foreign plain.

Carefully, unwillingly, he put everything away again, left his room, rattled down the stairs and down the stairs again, to the boot room. It was a half-day but Jackson was back there all the same.

He was in full flow. ‘I lost me leg an’ me eye at Toulouse. I gets yer shrapnel in me knee an’ I don’t know what in me eye, but it weren’t no good from then on. Now me knee is worth sixpence a day in pension money. Done it on the field they did, me leg. Assistant Surgeon Patterson it were. ’E said, “It’ll rot, me old fellow, an’ kill yer.” Well, it were all smashed to bits . . . Twenty minutes that took. Yer leg can come off quicker than that, but mine took twenty minutes.

‘Then it’s yer hospital with all the stink an’ the heat an’ the flies. Gawd knows ’ow yer comes out of it alive. Some goes raving mad in there an’ screams night an’ day. Yer never gets a wink o’ sleep. Bloody run yer bayonet through the lot of ’em, I would. Be kinder in the end.’

Jackson was, for a moment, silent, while contemplating his lost limb and the fact that he was still alive, before his mind wandered on. He was inclined to repeat himself; the boys had some of it by heart. He shifted his weight to make his absent leg more comfortable and said, ‘Boys nowadays is soft as butter. There were boys in the Army some as young as you young gentlemen.’ The sneer in Jackson’s voice was evident as he said the word ‘gentlemen’. He had been a thorn in the side of every officer who ever had command of him, though capable in battle.

‘Sieges, they’re nasty things. One o’ them Spanish places we did in winter with the river all over ice but we still ’ave to get in it an’ walk through it, like pretendin’ it were a field o’ rye more high than yer bellies an’ just as pleasant. Black an’ blue yer was when yer got out o’ that river, frozen from the ice dandling yer about like a babby an’ yer clothes stiff like yer couldn’t bend. Then what? Yer ’ave to dig the trenches what is rock solid while the Frenchies blast yer to bits with grapeshot an’ such.’

The little boys in the boot room stare and shiver but Robert Conway says, ‘Well, what happens then, Jackson?’

‘Yer brings up yer siege train, happen you’ve got it, and blast away at yer walls. A breach is what yer makes. Then yer generals speak an’ say an’ yer gets yer Forlorn ’Ope. Now yer Forlorn ’Ope is those what is ready to go first through the breach an’ yer volunteers are in a rare taking for that sort o’ sport. If yer wants to warm yer blood yer goes forward yerself, like, an’ yer officers is mad for it an’ cheer yer in as if ’twas a party: o’ course they die, most of ’em. Still, there is always more what fills their places. Yer die in odd ways, yer know. Some goes round and round like birds afore they dies.’

Castle Orchard must belong to someone. It belonged to a Mr Arthur, known as Johnny to his innumerable friends. He was of that set of gentlemen known as dandies or ‘exquisites’ and they tended to address him as though he were a child. It was not an era in which a man might call his friends by their Christian names, but Arthur gave the impression of never having grown up. He was a slave to all things fashionable – from wearing a frockcoat with a nicety of gathering at the shoulders, a neckcloth just so . . . gloves just so . . . snuffbox, dancing pumps, canes, pins, quizzing glasses, all just so . . . and exaggerated and ridiculous – to never paying his bills and passing his time at the gaming tables. He was even able to set the fashion. His charm lay in his ability to find his own follies and the follies of fashion all amusing – and he laughed away at his own mishaps and escapades, and was declared a good fellow. As for Castle Orchard, he was estranged from it, this rustic retreat, as a man might be from his wife or even his best friend, estranged but unable to break the link that bound him to it.

He was of medium height and slender, but a little pulling in here and a little puffing out there was necessary to retain an elegant slightness of figure. His head was crowned with yellow curls, naturally his own. His face was round and pale and his eyes large, childlike and blue. He had been known to say that as a youth he had been pretty and ethereal – but maturity, for Arthur was past thirty, had made him handsome. He was no longer ethereal except to his creditors, who found in him a curious lack of substance. If he was to be associated with Castle Orchard, it could only be to the little, mostly blue, butterflies that flew, with a dizzying frenzy, over the kidney vetch and trefoil of his native chalk. His nature was that of a butterfly.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Arthur had breakfasted and left his lodgings in Half Moon Street. To leave his lodgings was an art, owing to the importunings of the myriads who, able to sneak up the stairs, haunted the landing hoping for some little amount towards their bills. He was making his way to the Haymarket in order to dally in the heavenly delights of the Old Snuff House. He had with him a young friend whom he had decided to patronise. The young friend had the makings of being quite as fanciful a creature as Johnny himself and had lent him a small sum of money, which act needed repaying somehow as it was not at all likely to be repaid in the customary fashion, of which both were aware.

It being June, Piccadilly was thronged with every sort of fashionable vehicle, cabriolets and curricles, each more elegant than the last; gentlemen on the finest horses and wearing the finest coats and boots and waistcoats and neckcloths, and tall hats with curly brims; ladies driving their own horses and pairs of horses matched to the last hair in their tails. Ladies in beautiful habits, with exquisite bonnets, ladies with crests on their cabriolets and liveried footmen and grooms, and the whole conglomeration wishing to be seen in Hyde Park sometime between the hours of four and six o’clock.

Such was fashionable London, aware yet unaware of the other London, a street away, thronged with the working poor, the beggars, the prostitutes, all of whom could arise as one body and become the mob, capable of murder though more often merely breaking windows; the partisan mob either shouting for reform or condemning Roman Catholics, all an excuse to throw stones.

‘Why don’t you ride?’ the younger man asked Arthur, waving his hand in the direction of the mêlée.

‘Oh, I have done, I have done, but a horse is a tiresome thing. I have from time to time given my heart to a horse, but a horse needs a groom and a stable and I’m not a rich man. One hundred and fifty pounds a year, at the least, for a horse and a groom. Whenever I have had a horse it has ended up in the bazaar, and next I look round to find it is being enjoyed by somebody else. Never mind. I don’t really care for riding. My delicate frame will hardly withstand it.’ Here Arthur smiled and laughed, knowing his frame would stand it perfectly well, choosing to make himself ridiculous. At the same time he raised his quizzing glass and stared fixedly at a pretty girl passing by in an open carriage with her mother beside her. His young friend thought this rude, but he knew it acceptable conduct for a dandy, who was expected to be rude to women, to ignore them, leave them without chairs or embarrass them with prolonged attention.

Arthur, as if reading his mind, said, ‘What a delicious, timorous creature, wrapped in fifty layers of gossamer. How stupid she would be if you found yourself next to her at dinner, but yes, a delightful child and to be ogled by me will make her quite the thing. I am conferring a favour by noticing her.’

‘Put that way, I suppose . . .’

‘No need to suppose anything. It is so if I say so. What a horrid crowd. One can hardly get along the pavement. Think of the dust, if the streets were not watered. I should have to retire and live on my estate in order to breathe. What a calamity. What should I do?’

He said no more until they reached their destination. Here, the Old Snuff House provided him with a few cronies, and threequarters of an hour was idled away in choosing and ordering. The young friend felt surplus to requirements and, eager as he was to retain his place beside the august person of Arthur, wondered if it was not the tactful moment to escape . . . but no, he was summoned and told they must proceed to St Martin’s Lane for the purchasing of buttons.

‘My tailor is making a coat,’ Arthur announced.

Silence pervaded while the younger man contemplated the paying of the tailor. Arthur took his arm in a companionable manner. He introduced him here and there. He hesitated before leaving the Haymarket, for he was close to the perfumer’s. His mind went to Oil of Roses but he determinedly turned his back. The young friend dodged a Punch and Judy Show and tripped over some ragged little boys.

‘Your coat is so much the best,’ he said, ‘I wonder you can bear to get another.’

He looked down at his own coat and wished he was less plump. The buttons were under stress.

‘A gentleman must have a new coat,’ Arthur declared, ‘or he would be nothing. I shall go into the country, for it’s June and shortly Quarter Day. The rents, for I take them on a quarterly basis, await me, and I shall rain pounds on the head of my tailor.’ He laughed. ‘Everybody owes their tailor. I should be quite ashamed not to owe him something. Only nobodies, like Allington, don’t owe anything.’

‘Who is Allington?’

‘Why, nobody. Didn’t I say so?’

They were soon absorbed in buttons. The choice was wide. Arthur thought of silk and then of silver and then of gilt or even of gold while rejecting mother-of-pearl. His friend fancied the ivory, but Arthur settled for gilt.

‘Are they not rather dear?’

Arthur gazed at him in mock astonishment. ‘My dear fellow, pecuniary interests may be reflected in the case of horses or opera girls, but not of buttons. They are too important.’ He then, of course, laughed.

They hired a hackney carriage to take them back to Half Moon Street. While the younger man paid, Arthur searched the crowds about his door and on the stairs for anyone who was likely to serve him a writ. For a moment he was uneasy but it was generally understood that Quarter Day would settle any debt of too pressing a nature. He elbowed his way to his apartments followed by his friend, a chorus of voices vying with the barrel organ in the street.

‘Settle our bills, sir, or the law will ’ave yer!’

‘Quarter Day, Quarter Day,’ Arthur answered, airily waving a glove in passing.

The door being slammed on the press, the younger man reached in his pocket to mop his brow, only to find his silk handkerchief gone.

‘Some small urchin will be flogging it, you may be sure, at this very moment. I hope you still have your watch,’ Arthur remarked, placing his cane in a stand amongst a host of other canes.

‘Indeed, I have my watch,’ his friend replied, anxiously feeling his waistcoat, whilst peering at himself in one of the two handsome looking glasses that dominated the apartment. He had been in Arthur’s rooms before and was, as usual, amazed and absorbed by the richness of the clutter. Johnny liked to collect things and was never content unless adding to the cabinets of snuffboxes and boxes for toothpicks; quizzing glasses, watches, rings, bottles of scent and cascades of silk awaited selection. A large dressing case lay open on a table and further bits and pieces spilled out of it.