Castle Orchard (12 page)

‘You don’t have much up here,’ Arthur said. ‘I suppose you live like a soldier, as if you were in a bivouac. Perhaps you don’t quite believe in the transaction, think that Castle Orchard is a figment of the imagination.’

‘Of yours or mine?’

‘Why now of both, I suppose. However, I have returned, as you can see.’

‘And is Castle Orchard itself aware of the transaction?’

‘No. It occurred to me that there is a usefulness in the matter remaining a secret for another week or two.’

‘It’s hardly useful to me.’

‘I know, I know. You have been very patient. Would you give me a fortnight?’

‘Precisely from this day? If I must.’ Allington spoke reluctantly. ‘After that I spill the beans unless you can assure me you have written.’

‘I shall write next week. They will then expect you. The news won’t immediately return here. You may go down to Castle Orchard at the end of the fortnight if it pleases you to do so. Shall I tell them you are sending your horses? Haven’t you hunters? You can hunt from Castle Orchard.’

Captain Allington left him to write what he liked. He assumed Arthur wished to make his escape to the Continent at a moment when it was least expected, and he must be most preoccupied with that. If it was known the property was no longer his, he would be arrested. The fact it was not his and could not be sold to pay his debts, would come as an unpleasant surprise after he was ensconced in some Ostend or Calais boarding house, from which it was unlikely he could ever return.

Allington began to consider, cautiously, how he might rearrange his life. The immediate removal of all his horses into Wiltshire seemed rash and premature, despite Arthur mentioning stabling for twelve. For all Allington knew, there might be no roofs on the buildings.

London, from Arthur’s point of view, was still empty. The beau monde did not return until January, and that he should be seen, by chance, in the street, during October, made him wish to duck and hide. The Ramptons had returned to their seaside estate and he was at his wits’ end how to occupy himself at such a time when he had never before felt more like distractions. The fortnight, for both Allington and Arthur, passed extremely slowly.

With a constant change of horses the eighty-six miles to Salisbury could be done in a day. It had been Allington’s intention to ride all the way, but he confessed, only to himself, the riding exercise he had given his lame leg in August had done it no good and he thought it prudent to rest it before the hunting season He had therefore borrowed a britchka, a light travelling vehicle which could be opened or closed according to the weather, from a military acquaintance, with the idea of buying it if he liked it. He sent Dan on with his grey a few days before, showing him maps, listing place names and drawing pictures, concluding with the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. He travelled himself, accompanied by Pride, on 14 October.

On the following morning he instructed his servants to stay where they were, at the White Hart in Salisbury, but he told them where he was going. He had Pride pack him a small saddlebag with a change of linen and, having no idea what awaited him, indicated he would probably stay away one night. Mounting his long-tailed grey, he set out for Castle Orchard.

It was a beautiful day, the trees on the turn and the sky a hyacinth blue, autumn in its full opulence of fruit, the ripeness of plums and apples and the sweetness of leafy decay. He approved of decay that enriched the earth. When expecting death he had asked to be buried not in the neat little churchyard of the Cornish parish, but in some untended plot where he hoped he might add to the greenness: he had thus shocked his stepfather who had assured him he had no intention of carrying out such a heathen request. Allington had pointed out that the bodies of his comrades in arms lay in unconsecrated ground, though he did not add, ‘should they have the luck to be buried’. The reply had been that Allington’s circumstances did not necessitate such an expedient. Allington suspected him of having in his mind a suitable headstone already written out.

As he rode over the downs and into the valleys, spying here and there the river, the lines of Keats’ ‘Ode to Autumn’ ran through his head.

The poet attributed a sleepiness and indolence to autumn.

Allington knew that harvest was gained by the sweat of men and horses, by long hours and little rest. It was a season of merriment and contradictions. He could see the labourers working the fields, the pale creaminess of the stubble and the darker stooks. When he reached the land which, according to the map, was the outlying portion of Castle Orchard, he got off his horse and rested a moment. He spoke to the men and asked after the quality of the harvest, but he did not delay long. He felt a combination of expectation, pleasure and anxiety. The surrounding country filled him with a quiet happiness and he thought if fate should settle him amongst these grey hills and by the meandering river, he could live out his life more usefully and be content, he who felt destiny had marked for one thing and fate for another.

Arthur had been true to his word when he said that the property was in reasonable order. The farms were tidy and in repair, the roadside cottages snug, their gardens filled. Allington passed a farmer in brown frockcoat, breeches and gaiters, who wished him good day. Allington answered him gravely. He wondered if the man was a tenant of his own. He had looked for signs of poverty and unrest, for agriculture was at a low ebb, but this precise little corner of England seemed to be at ease. The farmer drove a smart cob in a yellow-painted gig. Allington asked him more precise directions to Castle Orchard and, though answering him, the man looked at him with surprise, as if no one ever asked for directions to Castle Orchard. He could instruct him no further than Orchardleigh.

Another ten minutes or so brought him to this small village, and even then it had required his trained eye for the lie of the land to actually happen on it. He noted the church and the substantial rectory. Castle Orchard remained elusive. It necessitated winding along a series of narrow lanes at right angles to each other before coming upon the iron gates which he knew must lead to the house. There was a single lodge in flint and brick, empty, its garden luxuriously entangled with Old Man’s Beard. He could see that, where money had been spent to maintain the estate, the immediate environs of the house had been neglected. The drive went away before him through thickly planted scrub and wood, the undergrowth encroaching, some massive limes marking the remains of an avenue, their boughs meeting densely overhead.

The gate being open, Allington urged his grey horse forward. Its hooves made barely a sound on the soft earth and the moss, but it pricked its ears expectantly and then gave a small start as a boy emerged abruptly from the brambles, a boy of eight or nine years old, in a pair of stout boots, trousers too short and a torn jacket.

Allington reined in his horse and stared down at the child who stared back at him with the roundest of blue eyes. He had no hat and his head was covered in a mass of yellow curls. He was the image of Arthur.

Leaning from the saddle, Allington asked his name.

The boy paused before answering. He was out of breath. He then said, looking anxiously behind him and stumbling with his words, ‘My name is Philip Osipher but I am not an Osipher – an officer, I mean. I never am, I am only the French.’

Allington said, ‘Why can’t you be an officer
of
the French? They had some perfectly good ones.’

‘The French put their lances in the wounded, jab, jab, jab,’ he replied, vigorously poking the ground with the stick he had.

The action made Allington wince and for a moment he closed his eyes, for a wound of his own had been administered just so and he felt it. He then said, ‘The Lancers were Polish but that is basically true, though certainly not at all times. It would be unfair to tar them all with the same brush: there was many a good gallant French officer. On the whole, if I were you, I should decline to be the French.’

He made as if to ride on but the boy said, ‘Why have you come here?’ He looked even harder at Allington but then something frightened him. He nervously backed away, turned round and fled.

The trees opened to reveal the house. It was sunny and mellow, made of red brick, possibly Queen Anne, but with a variety of attachments both older and newer, which gave it a misshapen but not unpleasing appearance, a muddled charm. It was not the orderly house of his dreams, but dreams were adaptable. The unkempt lawn swept up to the door and though there was a carriage sweep, weeds had seeded in the gravel. There was a sundial on a plinth, and to the east side of the house a tall, dark square of yew hedge, in which there was nothing but grass and blown leaves.

Without dismounting, Allington rode up to the front door and gave the bell pull a hearty jerk, but all was silent. He imagined somewhere in the depths of a distant kitchen, an elderly retainer, deaf to the summons even had the bell worked, which he doubted.

He turned his back on the house and looked across to the river. He could see the Philosopher’s Tower but all looked asleep in the sun. He wondered if that sprite of a child was the only thing that lived in the place. It had a silence like the fairy-tale castle of the Sleeping Beauty, indolent and heavy. He rode on past the house, the stables and the kitchen gardens, tempted to pause at each but holding himself back. He then saw an orchard, and there, a woman and a little girl busy amongst the apple trees. He made his way in that direction, riding carefully for he was in doubt where garden ended and field or park began. His approach was silent; his long-tailed grey trod the grass softly.

The apple trees were old and crooked, the ground bestrewn with leaves and fruit. The little girl ran about in a pink frock and pinafore, picking the windfalls. A small, pale Italian greyhound, her muzzle grizzled with age, started to bark in a desultory manner, half-turned in the wrong direction, but it made the woman look up.

Allington thought,
She is not entirely young but she is not as yet thirty
, and after that he noticed she wore, such a detail, a small mourning brooch in black and gold. She had a loose, faded apron over her green gown, the sleeves pushed back, and no hat. Her hair was cut rather short but it was a mass of loose, brown curls. The sun had touched her face with freckles and colour. It was lively, her eyes hazel or green, and she looked at Allington with a certain directness, not shy, no false modesty, but frankly as one person to another, though her gaze was questioning. She would, he knew, not be considered more than quite pretty, past the sweetness of youth with those lines of anxiety about her eyes, but he thought her beautiful and when he looked at her his mind went back to Keats: ‘
Thy hair softlifted by the winnowing wind. . .
’

The occasion upon which he had met her before sprung to his mind with startling clarity. So vivid was the memory, it was painful, even shocking. He remembered her name, but then Allington did not forget much. There had been no freckles then, no illicit touching of the sun. The sight of him on his grey horse in the middle of the orchard surprised her – troubled her a little, he thought, but no more. There was no recollection in her gaze. She laid her hand on the dog to quiet it.

Allington dismounted. He tied a knot in the reins of the grey and let it graze. He said, ‘I suppose you are expecting me. I rang the bell but got no answer.’

She said, ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work. We have few visitors.’

‘But you were not expecting me?’

‘Not unless you are Captain Allington. I had a letter about a Captain Allington sending horses. It seemed unlikely. I took no particular notice.’

Allington, disturbed, could only think of the need to prolong the moment, to be given time to discern those things he needed to know. He said, in order to contrive this, ‘I could reach quite high into this tree.’

She would probably think him strange. He took off his coat and flung it over the saddle, then rolled back his sleeves. There were scars on his forearms, the sabre cuts he had received from a Frenchman when he had lain wounded, pinned to the ground, and had endeavoured to protect his head. Some irrational part of him, and there was not much irrational about Allington, made him want to tell her of such scars, but there was, of course, no occasion to do so. He realised, from her calmness, that Arthur had written but told her nothing.

The little girl had never ceased to trot about, industriously filling the baskets. The old dog lay down. Allington started to pick the apples that had not fallen. It was as good an occupation as any, under the circumstances.

‘And you were not expecting me,’ he said, but this time it was more statement than question.

‘No, unless you are Captain Allington,’ she replied.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘He never sent anyone here before. He said to expect a Captain Allington, but I didn’t. I didn’t believe him, you see. Are you wishing to stay in this neighbourhood for a while?’ She had wondered how Johnny expected her to entertain a single man in a house containing only herself and the servants.

Allington said, evading the question, ‘I met a little boy on the drive.’

‘Yes, that is Phil and this is Emmy.’

‘He told me his name was Philip Osipher.’

This time she laughed. ‘I am afraid Phil can be like his father. He never knows where a game ends and real life begins. His name is, of course, Philip Arthur.’

At this Allington knew what he wished to know least, that she was Arthur’s wife, but he continued, methodically, to pick apples, while his mind, usually so ordered, ran about in disarray.

She said, ‘I am Mrs Arthur. Did he tell you that? You must be a friend of his.’

‘Of Arthur’s? Of your husband’s? Not exactly. We have inhabited the same lodgings in Half Moon Street for the last eight years.’ He tried, as never before, to will away encroaching sensations in his head, in his vision.