Castle Orchard (5 page)

Arthur said, ‘Ah well, it will soon be Quarter Day. I wish it didn’t necessitate my going down to Castle Orchard. The rudeness of the country, the inconvenience. You lucky dogs with no beastly land attached to your purses: cottages, widows, barns, ditches, roads, thatch, flint, brick, all like lumps of lead ready to make holes in your pockets, not forgetting the retired servants and your father’s wet nurse, all to be pensioned and never dying. Your father’s wet nurse never dies. Did you know that? They are immortal if they have a pension. I don’t wish to go to the horrid green fields and the horrid wet river.’

‘Why go then? Tell your agent to send the rents.’

Arthur sighed but made no reply. After a moment, he said, ‘I tried my mother again, but since she had the paralytic stroke, it is even harder to make her understand things. I say, “Mother, I must flee to Calais, my debts are so pressing”, and she replies, “Your father always said you were a naughty boy, Johnny. You had better go on to Paris for it is pleasant at this time of year”.’

Sir John said, ‘And should I kill Allington in a duel, I suppose it would be of the greatest convenience to you? Come, don’t look so shocked. I am no hero and value my skin. I’ll lend you my coach for your journey to Wiltshire, if go you must.’

There was a little house in Chelsea where a woman wrote letters at a satinwood desk. Her abundant black hair was tied up with scarlet ribbons, which now and again fell over her forehead. She pushed them away impatiently, never raising her eyes from the ink and the paper.

Her first letter was to Thomas Smythe Esq. seeking his protection. Her second was to Sir John Parkes, seeking his protection and, a mere hint, a house more fashionably placed. Her third letter was to the manager of a theatre declaring herself anxious to resume her career. Her fourth letter was to Captain Allington, confused, contradictory, begging his forgiveness and protesting her innocence all in the same breath. She thought of what she had told Sir John, that Allington was a cripple and an invalid. She thought of Allington’s cool, dark eyes and of his dark hair, soft as a child’s but with that streak of white – she believed the result of a wound to his head, for he certainly did not mention such things. She wondered if he would call out Smythe or Sir John Parkes and if he were peculiarly jealous of his honour. What Allington might or might not do remained a mystery to her and she laid her head on her arms and wept, for had he not been kind?

Allington had returned to his lodgings in Half Moon Street but he was restless and had half a mind to take a walk in the park before changing to dine out. His servant came in and handed him letters. He took them to the window. There was yet another from Miss Marietti. This he barely bothered to read before tearing it up and throwing it away. He then opened the next which was signed
Your most obedient servant, T. Smythe
. It was short, apologetic, humble, but gave word of honour as a gentleman of innocence in respect of a certain lady who had a house in Chelsea. The only solecism Smythe could admit to was drunkenness. He indicated that he would have been too drunk to commit the indiscretion of which gossip accused him. If Captain Allington felt his honour compromised, he was willing to meet him at a time and place convenient to him.

The third letter was from Sir John Parkes. It was haughty in tone but indicated that a certain woman could not be relied on to give evidence or speak the truth, that her motive was one of sour grapes for Parkes having rejected her on a previous occasion; and last of all, unwisely, suggested Allington should believe the evidence of his own eyes as he was known to have visited the premises in Chelsea in time for breakfast.

Allington went to his desk and sat down to write a letter for himself but he paused to think. Of the two, he believed Smythe rather than Parkes, the latter not being a man he could trust. He cared little either way, only wishing he did not have to live amongst such people. He occasionally reflected on the anomaly of having sacrificed his health and very nearly his life, so that Arthur and his like could prink about the streets unmolested by pillaging French infantry. Eventually he wrote to Smythe and enclosed the letter he had received from Parkes, concluding that if they had a need to quarrel, it need not be with him.

He picked up a book but finding his servant still in the room, he said, ‘Well, Nat, you must take this letter for me. It seems you have earned your sixpence today. You shall have it now, though the day is not yet over.’

‘I got that sixpence every day this week or my name is not Nathaniel Pride.’

Allington said, without looking up from his book, ‘So I have observed.’

Pride took the sixpence and dropped it into the bottle on the table. He wondered if his master smiled. He made as if to go downstairs to deliver the letter but as he went he muttered, ‘Reading those darned books, it can only do his head a mischief.’

Allington said, ‘Did you say something, Nat?’

‘No, sir.’

This time Allington did smile but Pride did not see it. After five minutes he closed the book and went downstairs himself. Arthur’s creditors were, as usual, occupying the space but they moved aside for Allington.

He walked swiftly, or as swiftly as his slight lameness would allow, to the end of the street and entered the Green Park, turning towards Hyde Park, now rather deserted. Thus he avoided Apsley House, the residence of His Grace the Duke of Wellington. The pavement might be thronging with eminent military men, generals and major-generals, colonels and princes, gathering for the anniversary dinner. Some of them would know him, a man who could pass as a Spaniard or a Portuguese, who spoke languages fluently, who could be got to go behind the French lines. Some would be regretting he was a half-pay officer and wishing a job could be found for him, but most of them would know that the wounds he had received had left him unfit for any sort of service.

He needed to walk. His lameness was more apparent. There were times when he seemed able to disguise it. Now he walked as if he would put London behind him. Customarily he took particular pleasure in the greenness, the trees and the few cows the park offered, but today it was difficult to be distracted. He lost his sense of purpose and walked much more slowly. He watched a pigeon fly, sailing along with its wings outstretched, only occasionally finding it necessary to give them a few casual flaps. It dived and swooped, perfect in motion, free. He had used to feel like that himself, his limbs, his whole body, his very brains, all in accord, and what was more, invincible. At Waterloo his luck had run out. What was an anniversary? In this case it was three hundred and sixty-five days multiplied by ten, minus the leap years. A sum so trifling could hardly be considered a sum, yet his head, as if struck again by the sword of a Frenchman, was utterly confused.

He hesitated and seemed to lose direction, occasionally stopping altogether and covering his eyes with his hand. Now, to a few casual passers-by, he looked not only lame but white and ill. At length, as if defeated, he turned and retraced his steps.

The street door of his lodgings was open. He went up the first flight of stairs. The duns and the debt collectors parted before him. They were staring at him. He reached his own landing without giving them his customary greeting. He fumbled for his key but Pride was at the door and swung it wide. Allington sat down at his desk and seemed to bend over it painfully.

Pride went straight to the bedroom and pulled the curtains shut. He placed a bowl by the bed and then he went to Allington and helped him out of his coat and his waistcoat.

He said, ‘Go and lie down.’

Allington went through to the bedroom.

Pride could hear him moving about, slowly continuing to undress before crossing the room to the bed. Eventually he heard him say, ‘Nat, you are still sober?’

‘On my honour.’

There was a long pause before Allington continued, ‘Bring me a pen and paper.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Allington struggled to sit up. He looked at the sheet of shining white paper before saying, ‘Take it away. Go to my desk. Write me a note.’

Pride, leaving the bedroom door ajar, sat down at the desk and waited.

‘The note must go to Major Longbourne at the Officers’ Mess. Dan can take it. I promised I would dine there.’

‘Don’t fret, for Gawd’s sake. What shall I say?’

‘It is with the . . . deepest regret Captain Allington . . . is no longer in a position to accept . . . the invitation from the officers of the regiment . . . on this day, whatever the day is . . . yes, but we know the day, Nat . . . owing to indisposition . . . Can you write all that? I had better sign it.’

The familiar searing pain on the left side of his head prevented him from considering what Pride might have made of the task, and he concluded by vomiting into the bowl.

Pride threw down the pen, jumped up, took a damp cloth from the washstand and wiped his master’s face. He said, ‘You ain’t signing nothing.’ He returned to the desk and picked up his note. On it he had written:

He folded it carefully.

Allington said, ‘Have you written it all down?’

‘Yes, I’ve done it perfect. When Dan comes round with the mare I’ll give it to him. Meantime I’ll get the ice, somehow or other. Don’t you move or you’ll bring your stomach up all over again.’

Pride rapidly disappeared down the stairs. When Allington was ill the servant was aware of his responsibilities: he became brisk and authoritative and not in the least tempted by the gin shops.

He saw a groom, a man even smaller than himself, leading a long-tailed grey mare up the street and called out, ‘Oh Dan, Captain’s bad as could be.’

Pride took little account of Dan’s deafness and addressed him as though he had no impediment, but at the same time he held his head and covered his eyes, next pointing up to Allington’s window.

‘Take this note. It has to go to Major Longbourne. You know where it has to go. You know the barracks.’

Dan was watching Pride all the time and wishing he did not gabble. He could, to a certain extent, lip-read and he knew where Allington had meant to go. He took the stub of a pencil from his pocket and drew on the outside of the letter, three soldiers. He leaned on the saddle to do it and the three soldiers marched, their guns on their shoulders and their tall shakos on their heads.

‘Yes, yes, the Officers’ Mess, the barracks. They are all a-celebrating, though God knows what, except they ain’t dead and thousands were. I must get some ice and make a cold flannel.’

Dan put the letter in his pocket, got on the grey mare and rode away.

Sir John Parkes had a house in Albemarle Street where he adorned himself in his ridiculous clothes, his wide-striped pantaloons, his drawn-in waists, his puffed-up sleeves and his elaborate gold-topped canes. Now he sat at his bureau wearing a silk chintz dressing gown in green and blue, and Turkish slippers.

It was several days since he and Arthur had dined together but now Arthur was sitting behind him waiting patiently for something to occur. Finding nothing did, he said, ‘To go or not to go, that is the question.’

‘To Almack’s?’

‘Of course. It is Wednesday. Where else should we go? We must be seen at Almack’s.’

‘To eat a little dry cake and a stale sandwich?’

‘To admire the lights and the music.’

‘To imbibe some barely intoxicating liquor?’

‘Oh well, what could it matter? I always go.’

‘And to dance a quadrille with some bashful child, her governess not yet expelled from her mind? Indeed, the said governess is such a ghostly presence you almost think you see her ready to dictate “In a cowslip’s bell I lie” and peering mistrustfully over your shoulder. No, I am not in the mood for Almack’s. Look here, Arthur, I wrote a letter to Allington and have received no reply. It makes me devilish anxious.’

‘If it’s Allington on your mind, let us go to Almack’s for he never in his life was there and you needn’t think of him again the whole evening. Besides, he isn’t well.’

‘He’s ill?’

‘How should I know? It’s the usual thing. His man creeps about, all is silent and the curtains closed across the window. It was the anniversary of all that blood and slaughter, so I dare say he went off to some military dinner, drowned his troubles and suffered accordingly.’

‘On lemonade?’

Arthur shrugged. ‘Either way, I doubt he sits and writes a letter. I went to Lady Mills’ ball. What a crush. I was stuck on the stairs for an hour and could neither move up nor down, so the
Morning Post
may declare it a great success. Come, Sir John, we can’t have you in such poor spirits because you haven’t had a letter from Allington. I shouldn’t care to have a letter from him myself.’

‘Oh Arthur, go away.’

Arthur suddenly leaped to his feet and started to plunge about the room, making the wildest gestures with his cane.

‘Allington would never call you out. Don’t fret. He would consider you a meagre opponent, not worth the trouble. He’ll never have more to do with the pretty Italian. You may go and claim her for your own, you lucky dog, else she must return to the stage. Why didn’t Allington let her continue her career? Clarence allowed Mrs Jordan to continue hers, and he a Royal Duke. Royal Dukes are always strapped for cash and Allington must have a fortune. All those military men have been celebrating Waterloo. Why do we celebrate the death and wounding of nine thousand Englishmen? I suppose we are celebrating the death of even more Frenchmen. Some of the English were Germans pretending to be English and some of them were Scots. I much prefer the French to either. Mind you, Allington could pass as a foreigner, he has such dark eyes. His skin is the shade of the birchwood veneer on your desk but only in summer. In winter he is nearly as white as you or I. That desk comes from the Baltic, does it not? Seeing that Allington is to slice you up, you had better write a will and leave it to me, I like it so much. He’ll be ill three days, he always is, unless it’s the ague. I wonder at his parentage with that skin, eyes and hair, though his hair is brown, not black.’