Castle Orchard

by E A Dineley

  ‘The headmaster was a little like the rector here. In my second term he called me to his study and told me my mother had died. Of course, I didn’t believe him, droning on and on about being released from the cares of the world, happy amongst the angels, the cherubim and seraphim, and making me kneel down to say a prayer. I was confused at not getting my mother’s letters any more, confused and suspicious. Nobody came to see me. The headmaster, I later understood, assured them I had taken the information calmly and continued to do well at my lessons. When I returned to Tregorn for the holidays, I ran from room to room, seeking my mother. Where was she? Where was she? I started to shout and scream. I ran amok, threw things, broke things. Nobody knew what to do. Then my eldest stepbrother caught me by the arm and conducted me to the churchyard. He showed me a grave, not yet greened over, and said, “Your mother is there and your little brother too”. He then left me.

  ‘The terrible truth dawned, first that I would never see my mother again and second, that she never would have died if I had been there to prevent it.’

  Allington turned to look at Mrs Arthur and saw he had brought tears to her eyes. He went white himself. Mrs Arthur, returning his look, thought, as she had previously, that he would escape if he could – the tears of a woman were painful to him; but he had no means of escape.

  Allington said, ‘I am sorry I upset you. It wasn’t my intention. We’ll talk of it no more.’

  ‘But why shouldn’t I be upset for your sake, for the picture you draw? You are my benefactor, at this minute.’

  After a moment he replied, ‘That’s too difficult a thing to answer. It was all long ago. What made me tell it?’

  Mrs Arthur thought, though it was long ago, it was as clear to him as yesterday.

  Mrs Arthur caught a cold and gave it to Emmy who, though not very poorly, knew it to be a good excuse for coming downstairs and having a story read to her. She appeared in an old, outgrown dressing gown of Phil’s after dinner, when she was usually asleep. At the same time Captain Allington had walked up from the lodge.

  Mrs Arthur remonstrated with Emmy, who said, ‘Just a little story.’

  ‘I haven’t much voice for storytelling.’

  This was evident even to Emmy but she sidled closer to the fire and said, ‘Captain Allington will give me a story. He has a book.’

  ‘Where is your storybook?’ he asked her, sitting down.

  ‘I forgot it. You can tell me a story.’

  ‘I think you overestimate my powers.’

  ‘What do I do?’ she asked, puzzled, going to lean on his knee.

  ‘You ask me something too difficult.’

  ‘Read to me from your book.’

  ‘It is not a book for little girls.’

  ‘May I sit on your lap?’

  Allington picked her up. She immediately laid her head on his shoulder and he cradled her comfortably enough. He looked across at Mrs Arthur who was watching them. She thought his having Emmy in his arms, her brown curly head on the dark lapel of his coat, her child, an act of seduction.

  Emmy said, ‘Tell me something from your book.’

  Allington closed the book and put it down. He quoted, from memory:

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

  A stately pleasure-dome decree.

  Where Alph, the sacred river ran

  Through caverns measureless to man

  Down to a sunless sea.

  Emmy interrupted him. ‘What is Kubla Khan?’

  ‘A king – a warlord perhaps, I am uncertain of his history; a man who was always fighting.’

  ‘Like Robert. He is always playing a battle. Phil too, but Phil doesn’t like it. Do you know the French put a biscuit on a string like a bead? Alph is a river, is that right? I am not allowed near the river in case I fall in and drown. Phil is afraid of the river. Is this river under the ground?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me some more.’

  ‘So twice five miles of fertile ground/With walls and towers were girdled round. How much is twice five, Emmy?’

  ‘Ten.’ Emmy, with the help of her fingers, could answer that.

  ‘Sometimes I think I will have those walls and towers placed around Castle Orchard.’

  ‘We have a tower already. What would the walls be for?’

  ‘To keep out all the poachers, but it would be expensive to build – and what should we do when we got to the river?’

  ‘It must be like Alph and go underground.’

  ‘Ingenious child.’

  ‘But it would be difficult to dig the hole, for the water would fill it up.’

  ‘I can see you having the makings of an engineer.’

  ‘Tell me more poem.’

  Allington recited the rest of ‘Kubla Khan’, by which time Emmy was nearly asleep. She snuggled close into his arms but she asked drowsily, ‘What is a damsel?’

  ‘A young girl.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘Not so young as you.’

  ‘Like Mama?’

  ‘Yes, like your mother, but she is not from Abyssinia.’

  ‘No, she’s from Devonshire.’

  Mrs Arthur said, ‘Emmy, I am going to take you up to bed.’ She got up and held out her arms for her daughter.

  The following day, Captain Allington left for London.

  Phil came back from school, to his mother’s astonishment, wearing new boots. ‘I went to the cobbler and ordered them,’ he said. ‘Today they were ready.’

  ‘But the cobbler must be paid.’

  ‘Captain Allington paid him.’

  ‘And you made no mention to me of needing boots.’

  ‘No, but I mentioned it to Captain Allington, that my boots were tight, and a few days after he spoke of it and sent me to order them. The cobbler was already paid.’

  Phil looked with deep satisfaction on his new boots. Mrs Arthur was indignant. Captain Allington was so high-handed, yet how could she draw a line between what he might or might not pay for? Yes, if her necklace were worth sufficient money, she would go to Westcott Park, however much she might dislike it, however impossible.

  Captain Allington was expected back within the week but he was gone a fortnight. Mrs Arthur became anxious about the gaming tables and her necklace, but when he did return she could see he was ill.

  First he gave her a hundred pounds, which was, he said, the value of the necklace. She was so relieved to receive the money she thought it irresponsible to regret the loss, and while contemplating this, forgot to ask him whether the stones were paste. He then went on to describe his visits, on her behalf, to the various lawyers, but without actually telling her much except that he thought it would be several months before they got to the bottom of the riddle and she had best ignore the situation for the time being. The matter was in hand.

  As to Allington being ill, he dismissed it as merely a spot of the ague, which attacked him from time to time.

  Pride had more to say on the subject. He sought out Mrs Arthur. ‘If he’s ill, I want him to sleep in the house. I couldn’t look after him so well in the lodge. It’s a little damp, I reckon, and I need a proper kitchen by. He got that cold you and Miss Emmy had. His chest was bad and he was feverish. I says, “Don’t go out in the wet,” but he just looks at me and goes out all the same. Sometimes he says, “Think of Spain and Portugal.” Well, I do. It would rain and worse, all night, buckets and buckets of it, icy cold. If we couldn’t get the baggage up we’d be lying out in it, no rations, no bread, no biscuit, no beef, no rum, bloomin’ starving an’ wet to the skin, same as the men. The Heavens ain’t particular when it comes to rank. Forget? Not likely. What master forgets is his wounds and the fevers. For two years his life wasn’t worth nothing, what with one thing and another.’

  Mrs Arthur said, ‘Make up a bed in the Blue Room.’

  ‘He won’t like it.’

  ‘Perhaps it will be my turn to be overbearing.’

  Mrs Arthur did not see Allington again until later in the afternoon
, certainly looking no better. The first thing she did was to make mention of Phil’s boots, a subject she had not had a proper opportunity to broach.

  He said, ‘Please don’t bother me with trifles.’

  She was about to say she now had the means of paying for them, but he put into her arms a large shawl, deeply fringed and prettily patterned.

  ‘Allow yourself to remain in my debt,’ he said testily. ‘We have yet to get the final outcome of your affairs so you don’t know how long that hundred pounds must last you. Put that shawl on. I very much dislike you to be so much in want.’

  Mrs Arthur laid the shawl, still folded, on her knee. She said, ‘I will make a bargain with you.’

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘That you will sleep in the Blue Room until you have entirely regained your health.’

  ‘I don’t wish you to be subject to gossip.’

  ‘Your health is more important to me.’ As Mrs Arthur said this she realised it was true. His health was more important to her than anything she could think of at that moment. The idea of his being ill drove from her the decision to go to Westcott Park.

  Before he could answer, Phil came in and went straight to Captain Allington and showed him his boots. Allington wished the child were not such a ludicrous caricature of Johnny Arthur.

  ‘Do they fit?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Show me your legs. I want to see if those bruises are gone.’

  ‘They are gone, sir.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘I don’t like to show my legs.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They are like sticks,’ Phil said reluctantly.

  ‘That’s of no matter.’

  Phil pulled up his trouser legs. Allington said, ‘Good.’ After a moment he added, ‘A very fine leg for a boot.’

  Phil’s eyes widened, great discs of blue. A credulous smile crept over his face. He pulled his trousers yet higher and contorted himself to take a proper look at his legs. He said, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Certainly. You will be the envy of every cavalry officer.’

  Phil’s face was rapturous. He hardly knew himself. Mrs Arthur still had the shawl folded on her lap but as she stood up Allington took it from her and draped it round her shoulders. She put up her hand to stay him but he said, ‘I know how to keep a bargain.’

  Mrs Arthur suggested to Pride that they should call a doctor.

  ‘Doctors or any of them medical folk, they knows less than I do,’ Pride scoffed. ‘Master has the fever. He gets it from time to time. I have the medicine. If the doctor comes they’ll bleed him, and he won’t have it. He doesn’t hold with it. They’ll drain a man’s life away when he’s half-dead. As for the fever, it frightens me, but I’ve plenty of the bark. The surgeons give it, the bark of a tree cooked up in water, though I’ve known some to put wine with it, it not being very palatable. The bark of the Jesuit tree, that’s what it is. A young officer when he had the ague, used to take a hot drink and then gallop his horse. It was meant to drive the fever off, but I’m bothered if I know if it did. Lots died of it. We got it from laying out in the dew. It doesn’t do you any good, laying out in the dew. One day for the fever, three or four days better, one day for the fever, that’s how it goes.’

  Pride was a competent nurse, or certainly as far as his master was concerned. He guarded the sick room jealously and issued orders to the kitchen but it was apparent he was extremely anxious. Allington, despite his care, got no better, each bout of fever progressively worse.

  ‘He wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me,’ Pride said, when Mrs Arthur came up to the Blue Room. He immediately started to ramble on as only Pride could.

  ‘That Waterloo, ma’am, was the awfulest battle in the world. Soldiers is mad not to miss a battle. Odd, I calls it. Well, it rains all night something terrible an’ food is short come the morning. Master gets a pinch o’ tea an’ a little stir-about. I were that nervous he were cross an’ packed me off to the back with his stuff. I fret over Joe, Captain Allington’s baggage pony, for he ain’t never heard action before but Joe keeps more calm than what I do. Well, he don’t know about the French out there, thousands of ’em, ranks of ’em, all a-shouting for that Napoleon what they thinks so much of. I guards that baggage all day. They pesky foreign soldiers what run away would ’ave nicked it. When I was a soldier I never ran away. That frightens you more than staying. They blindfold you an’ shoot you in a trice if you desert, but it’s my belief nobody wouldn’t desert if they got a square meal. At ten o’clock the guns start, the smoke gets up, you can’t see a thing and it’s listening, listening, listening. The noise, the terrible noise . . . won’t they ever stop? The wounded start to come by, droves of them, faces black as soot. They’re that thirsty they’ll drink the water what the wounds are washed in. It’s the powder see. You bites the head from the cartridge an’ the powder, gets in your mouth. Very drying stuff, powder.

  ‘All day that battle goes, hour upon hour, and nobody knows what’s happening. When dusk comes on, it dies away. They tell me Captain Allington is dead and they tell me it’s a victory, but I don’t care what it is if my master’s dead. Night comes on. I’m too low to do much. Nothing to do, no master, no meal to get. The world’s empty like, though ’tis full of folk.’

  Pride pauses for a moment to prop Allington up in order to give him some water.

  ‘A battlefield is a fearsome thing, but at night it’s at its worst, with all the looting and robbing and murdering what goes on. There’s no dying in peace out there. The soldiers what ain’t dead have dropped down in heaps to sleep. At dawn I creeps out and finds a few men of his company just waking a bit. I wants to find his body. If I don’t find that, they might forget he was an officer and dump him naked in a pit. I wants him to have a funeral, a grave, and sweet, solemn words out the Bible. I wants his hands crossed on his breast an’ his uniform on, his sword, and I’d stay by and mind that grave as long as I lived – at least, I thinks I would. Nobody cares for him like I do. ’Course the uniform he’s wearing would be looted off him but I had his other, same as I keep in the cedarwood chest.

  ‘Two miles each way, that battlefield, two miles each way and forty thousand dead and wounded, let alone the horses. The place were heaped with horses. As for the infantry, you could see the shapes of the squares for the bodies laid there. Carnage you wouldn’t credit, but I’d seen it all before – never so bad though – ’cept the breaches at Badejos. The men from his company knows where he is. They tried to get his body off before, but it were too tricky.’

  Tears came into Pride’s eyes. He wiped them away fiercely.

  ‘I fights for the master, that I do, in my own way. I ain’t no soldier, I’ve told you that, but there’s another sort o’ fighting, and I done that. Well, when we find him, nobody isn’t excited he ain’t dead ’cause it’s obvious he soon will be. I have that boat cloak of Captain Jameson’s on me arm, but oh, you never saw such as sight as he is, slashed to bits, his arms, his chest, his head, he’s just one bloody mess, and he’s got a dead horse on his legs. They’d taken his jacket an’ shirt, his jacket with all his little precious things he kept in the pocket, the little picture and the letter. Still, I was prepared for that. The whole world seems one bloody mess just then, the whole world as far as your eye could see, one heaving, groaning bloody mess. Some of them holes in my master was done when he were on the ground. The French ain’t particular that way. They’ll take a jab at any man what moves. I never could like a Frenchie, but Mr Emill, he weren’t a bad fellow.

  ‘Heave the horse off him, wrap him up in the boat cloak, carry him off the battlefield, working through the bodies, every sort o’ thing. Took ’em five days to shift the wounded off. The roads are blocked with carts, coaches, baggage, the wounded, the dying, the dead. Everyone cries for water, but there ain’t no water. Every ditch is full of blood. We gets him up in a cart. The journey’s terrible rough and we’re three hours on the road to Brussels
. I walk. I reckon he’ll be dead every step I take an’ I cry like a baby.

  ‘You’ve got more chance if you’re an officer. Every hospital is full. That Brussels is a pretty place. They put straw in the streets and lay out the wounded, row upon row, French and English side by side and any other sort of foreigner. Funny thing, a war. The women comes out from the houses and minds them best they can. Our first billet is an awful bad place, a bit of a stable. I don’t know how to find our own surgeons, what belong to the regiment. I just lie low and mind him myself. As to the wounds, I think what a mess master looks, all gaping, not neat for his grave. You don’t want to go to your grave full of holes. I’m a tailor, ain’t I? I make a tidy of job it, neaten him up, even his head I shaves and sews up neat. The water for washing and cleaning I boils. Master always says that. Needles and knives and what-have-you. He says, “You don’t know what’s in the water too small to see.” Well, I don’t suppose there’s anything in it, but I boils it all the same. I knowed of a gentleman what sat on a doorstep and sewed up his own belly but he died as he finished the job. Master ain’t conscious, not really, but he’ll swallow if I give him something – water, gruel, wine. Then Major Wilder seeks us out. He’s come out from England, special. He gets us a real good billet in a merchant’s house, sober sort o’ folk but nothing ain’t grudged. He fetches a surgeon. The surgeon looks at master and says it’s a waste of time and to let him die quiet like. Master’s leg is bust and he has a musket ball under the knee. I do wonder the surgeon don’t take his leg off, for they gets paid for each limb they takes off, so stands to reason they take off as many as they can. Master says it ain’t so, but officers don’t never admit to that sort o’ thing. I wants the surgeon to take out the ball and splint the leg for to make him comfortable, seeing he ain’t dead yet, and Major Wilder saying the same, though the man’s asleep on his feet, he’s kindly, an’ does it. Major Wilder won’t let my master be bled, knowing how strong he feels about that. Just as well, ’cause they’d not be likely to listen to me.’