Castle Orchard (23 page)

Mr Conway was dumb with horror at the thought of so many bodies so unceremoniously despatched into holes in the ground and the prayers left to Captain Allington.

Seeing Mr Conway made no reply, Allington continued, ‘Sometimes troops were drawn up for religious observances, but battles were fought on Sundays – Toulouse on Easter Sunday and Waterloo itself was on a Sunday. During the Peninsular campaign it was frequently necessary to use chapels to house ourselves and our horses, as the only roofed empty space. I dare say you will think it didn’t signify because they were Catholic. As for the rascally, fat priests, creeping about in black, we didn’t think much of them, so you could be right. You die hard in battle, the soul forced from the body, one second here, next burst asunder, perhaps in several parts and trampled underfoot; yet one moment before, able to think and feel, to write a letter home and contemplate the weather. My view at the time, and I have not seen fit to change it, was that any one of my Portuguese caçadores, despite their idolatrous habits and horrid priests, were as likely when they died to obtain salvation as the rest of us.’

Mr Conway, nervously seated on the edge of his chair, turning his hat about in his hands and occasionally giving a tug to the fine white tails of his clerical bands, endeavoured to picture himself, in the heat of Spain, bending and stooping on the battlefield, even before the cannons’ roar had ceased, with words, though what words, of comfort, to those who were not already corpses, and every second in danger of himself joining their number.

He cast eyes of desperate appeal at Captain Allington who viewed him yet more coldly, though he said, with a hint of levity, ‘Ah well, I suppose you would have been nothing but a nuisance and forever in the way. Now you come here to admonish me for my failure to attend church and I have admonished you for the failings of the Church. What else did you have in mind?’

Mr Conway, thankful to be removed from the battlefields, said, ‘Oh, a very delicate matter and one I hesitate to approach. Mrs Arthur is a woman without protection, no husband, no brother, no father.’

Captain Allington replied, ‘It is as well, in that case, is it not, she remains out of harm’s way, under what happens to be my roof?’ And before Mr Conway could suggest this was not the solution he had in mind, Allington added, ‘I think you were quite correct in hesitating to approach the matter. It would have been better not to have done so. I would not presume to discuss Mrs Arthur, so it seems odd you should. It’s not in my view the conduct of a gentleman, but I see you meant no harm by it. Let us part company before we fall out with one another.’

Captain Allington showed Mr Conway to the door.

Mrs Arthur met the latter hastening away across the carriage sweep, in his anxiety only just avoiding bumping into the sundial. He said, glancing at the windows, ‘My dear lady, Captain Allington . . . you and he shouldn’t be under the same roof.’

‘I don’t think it would be right for me to suggest he didn’t use the morning room.’

‘But you must leave. You must go to your sister. Captain Allington is a blasphemous gentleman – he’s put me into a terrible pother.’

Mrs Arthur could see this for herself. She said, ‘As soon as I hear from my lawyer, I shall know, I suppose, what to do. It is most kind of Captain Allington to allow me to stay here while he has all the discomfort of the lodge.’

Mr Conway swept on his way, muttering as he did so, ‘Pray leave, leave immediately, dear Mrs Arthur.’

Captain Allington, at this period free from headaches, set about fox hunting twice a week. He would reappear after dark, entirely worn out, content to sit by the fire and endure in silence the discomfort of his lame leg.

‘Nothing won’t stop him,’ Pride said. He was occupied with sewing the long seams of the drawing room curtains, a task in which Mrs Arthur could assist him. Things had not been changed, the same pictures hung in the same places, but Allington had ordered cloth for curtains, as those in the windows, long bleached by the sun, were little more than rags.

Pride smoothed and straightened the mass of fabric. It was a plain linen. He said, ‘Master loves his hunting. He don’t care a bit it worries me to death. He never did mind that. What I goes through waiting for him to be killed, war or hunting, he never will take into account. Still, when he’s hunting, out the way, it gives me a chance to give his uniforms an airing.’

Pride had appropriated a bedroom in the house for various articles for which there was no room in the lodge, and it was here the curtains were being made, for it was also his tailoring department. He went to a chest he kept in a corner and on opening the lid, he said, ‘I’m afraid the moth might get them, though kept in cedarwood, so I gets ’em out and looks ’em over. Why do they bugs think it digestible?’

He carefully lifted a uniform and laid it on the table. Mrs Arthur stared at it, the dark blue jacket, the bright facings, the silver epaulettes, the shining buttons. It stirred, she thought irrationally, an elusive memory. ‘How gaudily we go to war’, is that what Allington had said? And by gazing at his uniform, laying her hand tentatively on the cloth of the facings, it was as though the very garment had seen too much and now clandestinely revealed its secrets, the heart that beat, the lungs that breathed, the effervescent life, there one minute, gone the next.

Pride said, disconcerting her, ‘He never wore it much. That’s why it’s so tidy. The other he had at Waterloo, an’ that were the end of it. Looted, see. Fancy looting the clothes, all slashed to bits an’ bloody, but it’s the lace they are after, real bullion, an’ the little precious things in the pockets. Master lost all the bits and pieces he had in his pocket, things he never was without. Fancy shaking a man out of his jacket what’s lying bleeding on the ground three quarters dead, but they do, they never think nothing of it. Ah well, a soldier’s rights is his booty. I tell you what, them farriers what the cavalry have to have, are the worst. They’re meant to help as stretcher-bearers, but ’tis just a pretty excuse to have the officers’ watches. The women, they’ll be out there with the babes at their breasts before the firing’s stopped, turning the bodies up and prodding and poking the poor wounded. My ma, she brought me up a Christian, and I’m sure ’tis no Christian habits they women had.’

Pride reached for the red uniform and laid it out beside the blue. ‘’Tis smart in the cavalry but he were a thoroughgoing infantry man, master were. Red jacket, silver buttons – this was his dress uniform. The other wasn’t worth keeping. He wouldn’t sell it in the hope he could get back to his old regiment. The Portuguese have a dreary sort o’ uniform, brown, but still, seemed he were less likely to be shot when he had that on. As for the other stuff master did, that was worse than any battle. I never could rest easy. And in the most part of it, what were master to the French? Just the glint of a spyglass high on a rock. Spoke the languages, looked the part, I don’t know what he didn’t have to do an’ where he didn’t have to go, but I never could bear the thought of it, what they’d do to him if he were caught.’

Pride had reduced his voice to something of a whisper, but then he went off on another tack and became more cheerful. He replaced the uniforms and settled to stitching the curtains but his voice went on and on: the sun, the rain, Captain Jameson, the goat boy, the Duke of Wellington himself, were all grist to his mill.

Mrs Arthur saw in her mind Spain, as Captain Allington had described it, either hot and dry, fragrant with thyme and rosemary, or cold and wet for days on end, and she thought she saw a hundred thousand soldiers, sprawled asleep – even, she supposed, dead – and a very young Captain Allington, perhaps not yet a captain, wrapped in the boat cloak that concealed the tatty, gaudy uniform that, Pride said, hadn’t been off his back for days. In another world Johnny Arthur, carefully washed and scented in waistcoat and pantaloons, an ivory snuffbox in one hand and an elegant cane in the other, would be parading down St James’s in search of losing his money.

Mr Stewart Conway walked Mrs Arthur back from church. She wished she had mourning as a concession to public opinion but there was no help for it. She wondered about the dyeing of something black, but it did not seem as important as it should. Why should she wear mourning for Johnny Arthur?

There were significant changes to the walk, for the hedges were cut, sharp-edged and neat, and the leaves swept.

‘You are cold,’ Mr Conway said. ‘Why aren’t you wearing your cloak?’

‘I cut it up. I shall get another, but not yet.’

‘Do you hear nothing from your lawyers?’

‘Not much.’

‘It’s shameful. I can’t think what they’re about. You must have enough money to get a cloak.’

‘I am afraid to spend it. What mightn’t I need it for?’

After a pause for careful thought, Mr Conway said, ‘I shall lend you the money for a cloak.’

Mrs Arthur shook her head. She murmured, ‘So kind, but I would prefer not.’

‘I am an old friend. You could be beholden to me without trouble.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘You will only be beholden to Captain Allington,’ he said, an edge of sourness to his voice. ‘My brother is concerned he doesn’t come to church. He says it will set a bad example. He visited Captain Allington, but all he received was a lecture. Poor Hubert was much distressed.’

‘Don’t you think it would set a bad example if he sat in church with me?’ Mrs Arthur asked.

‘It would certainly draw attention to the fact you both reside at Castle Orchard.’

‘Ah, but we don’t, and I don’t believe going to church is one of Captain Allington’s habits. It’s hardly my business to enquire. Let’s not talk of him. Tell me about Phil.’

Phil himself had run ahead with Jacky and James.

‘What should I tell you?’

‘His legs are so bruised.’

‘There’s a lot of rough and tumble amongst the boys. They are like puppies at play.’

‘Sometimes I think it more than that.’

‘Mothers tend to think their child victimised.’

‘But are you sure it’s not so?’

‘Phil must learn to stand up for himself. To interfere will only make him less popular than he might already be.’

Mrs Arthur sighed. She was dissatisfied but knew no other approach and Phil himself would say nothing. They arrived at the carriage sweep.

Mr Conway said, ‘I shall come no further. I have no wish to see Captain Allington.’

As he spoke, Captain Allington came out of the house. He nodded to Mr Conway and said, ‘Good day to you, sir.’

Mr Conway returned the salutation coldly and called his little boys, who took no notice of him for they were in the thrall of Emmy. He had to lose his temper before they could be induced to come, and he thought Captain Allington mocked him. He stalked away down the drive with an arm each of his offspring.

Allington said crossly, ‘I don’t want you to get cold. Come indoors. Your shawl is worn thin. I hope Mr Conway is of assistance to you.’

‘How can he assist me?’

They entered the drawing room together. Captain Allington knelt down to tend the fire himself. He said, ‘By enquiring into your affairs.’

‘But how could he do that?’

‘How could he not? Aren’t they too long in coming to a conclusion?’

‘Yes, but it is not Mr Conway’s business.’

‘And he doesn’t make it so?’

‘No.’

‘Though you confide in him?’

‘Yes, as much as I can.’

‘If Mr Conway won’t make it his business, allow me to make it mine.’

Mrs Arthur, uncertain what to reply, said nothing. Allington then said, ‘Of course, you can have no reason to trust me.’

She replied, smiling, ‘As to trusting you, I am sure I should be advised to do no such thing.’

‘You have my word of honour you may trust me. Perhaps that isn’t enough. Come, sit by the fire, and tell me your situation. You should have a jointure.’

‘So I have. It was some sort of jointure should I be widowed, but I had the means of obtaining it sooner. My father saw all the dangers in my marrying Jonathan Arthur. He was certain he would desert me and leave me penniless. I could soon see the truth of this for myself, but I determined whatever Johnny said, the money should stay where it was.’

‘And where is it now?’

‘The lawyer says I withdrew it.’

‘Does he say when?’

‘He says very little, merely that I must know I withdrew it.’

‘They should have evidence. Did you have other money?’

‘A legacy from my father.’

‘And where is that?’

She said, ‘I gave it to my husband. I signed it away.’

Allington was silent but then he said, ‘You must have had reason.’

Mrs Arthur involuntarily put her hand to her mourning brooch. She started to speak but no words came. She looked round the room as if her little son Matthew might be there.

Allington got up from his chair and went rapidly to the window, turning his back on her, she thought, as if he would escape if he could.

Eventually she said, ‘It was the scarlet fever. Phil, who looks frail, had a tenacious hold on life, but Matthew, who was so robust . . . Emmy took it lightly. I told Johnny I would have no more children either to die or be ruined. I locked my door. He talked of vows made at the altar but there are many vows at the altar, few of which are kept – none by Johnny.’

Allington returned to her. She was confused at having upset him. Though he had a great measure of inscrutability when he chose, she thought she had upset him. He now said abruptly, ‘So Arthur threatened you with the bailiffs while you nursed, or buried, sick children.’

‘Yes. He had just obtained the estate, held in trust until he was thirty. I thought he would immediately mortgage it, but he had reasons against it.’

‘He bet against it. Your lawyers are Jonas and Scott.’

For a moment she was surprised he knew this, but then she remembered he must have received the deeds of Castle Orchard from one or other of them.

Allington continued by saying, ‘I shall call on them. If that doesn’t work I shall get our family lawyers, that is Lord Tregorn’s, to act for you.’