Castle Orchard

by E A Dineley

  ‘But Captain Allington – is he all right?’

  ‘Middling, I’d say, but what can you expect when he does everything so sudden? I’m to tell you he’s gone down to the river, he’s gone to the tower.’

  Mrs Arthur crossed the garden, passed the apple trees alight with blossom and greenery, and made her way to the Philosopher’s Tower. The door was ajar. Captain Allington was, she knew, there. She climbed the staircase and walked blindly into his embrace.

  Below them, Phil walked with the younger Conway boys along the river as far as the bridge, where the mist hung. They could be seen and heard from the window, which was open. Stephen was holding Jacky and James by the hand: they were now all a little afraid of the river, as if they had glimpsed what it could do. Phil was, perhaps, the boldest. He had conquered the river.

  Frankie was heard to say, ‘Robert wouldn’t come. He doesn’t want to play any more.’

  Stephen said, ‘We can play.’

  ‘Not the same games,’ Phil said. ‘Not those. When I grow up I expect I’ll be a soldier but I’m not going to be one now. We had better go away from the river. Jacky and James are too little. I’ll get Smokey Joe and we’ll take turns.’

  The boys turned back towards the house. Their voices diminished. Their footsteps left trails in the long grass, the dew.

  Captain Allington and Mrs Arthur smiled at one another. When she came to examine his face, it blazed with that fierce, impatient intelligence that made him look like his portrait, stripping the years from him. It shocked her. How was it she had engaged the attention, let alone the affections, of such a man? He also appeared extremely white, in fact not particularly well, but she thought him happy, very happy.

  He had on the table the little note she had written, that Dan had delivered.

  He said, picking it up and smoothing it out, ‘I viewed this as a proposal. The man is meant to ask, but as I didn’t, it must do.’

  Mrs Arthur said, ‘But you could have asked.’

  ‘You might have accepted me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But you might have accepted me for the same reason as you were prepared to accept Mr Conway.’ As Allington spoke, he restlessly paced the room, which was really too small to contain him. Mrs Arthur was aware that though he spoke seriously, he was absurdly light-hearted.

  She said, ‘It wouldn’t have been at all the same. And Castle Orchard, you will have it back.’

  ‘What of Phil?’ he asked.

  ‘When the time comes, you will do what is best for Castle Orchard. Time will tell what is best for Phil.’

  ‘I thought you might never forgive me.’

  ‘I have nothing of which I need to forgive you.’

  ‘Gaining Castle Orchard from Arthur by the means that I did.’

  ‘While you were away, I received a visit from the Ramptons. I learned a lot about you then. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘The principle is the same.’

  Mrs Arthur thought about this. Maybe he was right, that the principle was the same, but had he not been owed the money? She said, ‘I’m at a loss for words but I have nothing to forgive and nothing to condone. In fact, quite to the contrary. Could it be a sufficiently weighty subject for the Philosopher’s Tower?’ She then added, smiling, ‘If you told me every detail of what made you act as you have, I should make excuses for you.’

  Together they went downstairs and out of doors.

  She said, suddenly anxious, ‘Where have you been? You don’t look well.’

  ‘No further than the White Hart at Salisbury. I couldn’t go any further. I had the worst one of my heads, as Pride and the children would say, that I think I’ve ever had – but maybe I always think that. Pride was cross with me for going off so abruptly. He kept muttering, “Stand to your arms one hour before dawn when in the face of the enemy.” When we reached Salisbury he got so drunk he couldn’t look after me, so the arrival of Dan was opportune. He stayed with me until Pride was sober. In fact, I dismissed Nat.’

  ‘But he hasn’t gone.’

  Allington laughed. He said, ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if you had had the fever?’

  He took her arm and looking down at her he said, smiling cheerfully, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever have that again. I killed it the last time. As for my not looking well, I just got up too soon. We’ll walk across the meadow to the rectory and ask to have the banns read. Neither brother will care for it much, but that can’t be helped. Would you like to do that? It’s a little wet. You look very pretty. You had better wear a cloak.’

  The weather cleared again. Castle Orchard settled down in lazy warmth to await the summer. Pride, who had been busy moving things between the lodge and the house, now sat at the window of what was to be his new quarters, a pen in his hand.

  Dear Mother,

  We are stopping here. Your Nat ain’t going to know nothing but fields and cows and what. The master has come over sentimental, but it’s for the good. I can see him now, off for a walk, arm in arm, hand in hand, and little Miss Emmy scampering about picking the buttercups. You might think as he’s to be married, if he should turn sickly when I were away visiting, it wouldn’t be of so much account, but it’s not so . . .

  The letter proceeded on, the usual series of small lies and ingenious fibs designed to convince his aged parent he was indispensable. Behind him, on the mantelpiece, was the glass jar holding the sixpences.

  They all wrote letters that day. Captain Allington wrote to his half-brother.

  My dear Tregorn,

  I am going to marry Mrs Arthur. Three weeks for the banns. Will you come?’

  He wrote the same to Major Wilder, but more fulsomely. He then took out his pocketbook and wrote in that: Happiness. Contentment. They were not so bent on eluding me as I had thought. He then added, arbitrarily, A pair of greyhounds. Use the landau. Take the children, J. Arthur’s, God help me, life is curious.

  Mrs Arthur wrote to her sister.

  My dear Louisa,

  Captain Allington has asked me to marry him and I have accepted him.

  She stopped to consider the vague inaccuracies of this statement. It was not difficult to visualise the consternation it would arouse in the breast of Louisa.

  Come to Castle Orchard. Bring the little girls and let John give me away. Let him not be shocked. I have nobody else to ask. Tell him Captain Allington was prepared to give me back Castle Orchard. If only we had crystal balls, we wouldn’t make mistakes, or not so many, but for this I need no crystal ball, so you must believe me, dear Louisa.

  She paused again. The crystal ball told the future, not how to evade it, but perhaps there was not the need to complicate the matter by pointing this out. It was as hard as ever to write to her sister.

  As to the more distant future, Phil received a small independence from his paternal grandmother, the old lady dying intestate. As his mother had in her heart foreseen, he never did inherit Castle Orchard. He joined the Army and went out to Canada, where, in winter, the tears can freeze in your eyes – to fight the rebels in Montreal.

  You may still go to Castle Orchard, if you can find it, up that lane and down this . . . and ask to see the Philosopher’s Tower. Allingtons live there to this day. Captain Allington’s own eldest son, being successful at the Bar, entered politics and was elevated to the peerage. Being an impudent, clever fellow, he had a rook or a castle inserted into the family coat of arms.

  Acknowledgements

  I wish to express my gratitude to the late Nick Robinson, without whom this book and my last would be languishing in a drawer at the bottom of my desk.

 

 

 
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