Castle Orchard (21 page)

He turned his attention to the view. He could see Phil amongst the ruins of the castle, alone, shrugged up in his jacket. He got up abruptly, went down the stairs and back outdoors.

When he reached Phil, he said, ‘You are cold.’

Phil somehow interpreted this as a rebuke, that he ought not to be cold. He said, hanging his head, ‘I have my jacket on,’ as if having taken the necessary precautions against the inclemency of the weather, he could accrue no further blame. He then thought of a circumstance he connected with his jacket and added, ‘But it was made by my mother from her cloak and she hasn’t another.’

‘If you ran about you would get warm,’ Allington said.

Phil considered this. He then replied, ‘You can’t run about by yourself, because you don’t know why you are running.’

‘Throw pebbles in the river and see how far they go.’

‘I don’t like the river, I don’t like the river at all. Now I want treasure, I don’t like the stones, I don’t like to turn them over.’

‘The river is one thing – it could do you a mischief – but stones are another.’

Phil’s eyes were round with horror. He said, ‘Vipers, scorpions under every stone. One nip an’ they do yer business.’

Allington frowned. He said, ‘Where do you get this rubbish?’

Phil, further alarmed at having unwittingly caused Allington to frown, said, ‘Jackson in the boot room.’

‘If I were you, I shouldn’t believe everything he says. A scorpion would never stand the climate here, and as for vipers, they are asleep in the winter. What is it you tell me, you are looking for treasure?’

Phil detected a softening in Allington’s tone. He said, ‘If I could just find a little treasure I would give it to my mother. I shouldn’t want it for myself, except my boots are too small and when my mother asked me, I lied because of there being no money at Michaelmas. Now, the castle must be the place to bury treasure and if I could have turned the stones over, or some of the smaller ones, I might have found some but I remembered about the scorpions and the vipers.’

‘What a dilemma,’ Allington said.

He started to push the stones about, which were quite large, with his boot, and then bent down and rolled over a few more. ‘No scorpions, no vipers. Now get along and look under each stone, even these I’ve moved already because you must make a thorough search.’

Phil set about doing as he was told, heaving at the stones until he was pink and hot.

Allington returned towards the house. He could see the Conway boys coming in the other direction. They were very warlike, he observed, a tin trumpet and a flag on the end of a stick. He wondered, idly, which belonged to the rector and which to his brother. He had not warmed to Mr Conway; he thought him too intimate with Mrs Arthur, which, he supposed, was none of his business. Children he never minded.

Robert Conway, leading his little brothers and his even smaller cousins, saw Captain Allington. He knew it was Captain Allington, for it could have been no one else. He noted the slight limp, but the upright, soldierly bearing. In his mind’s eye he endowed him with the uniform of the 95th and every virtue a soldier could possess, of courage and sacrifice. Had he not been at Waterloo? In a second he found the childish chatter of Stevey, Frankie and the twins unbearable. He thought of making them all run home, but changed his mind. Enraptured, he gazed on the retreating form of Captain Allington until he disappeared under the arch to the stable block.

It was apparent, Allington thought, that the Arthurs had once kept a great many horses. Carriage horses, hunters, covert hacks, hacks for ladies, had all been reduced to nothing – nothing but one fat old pony of no known use, who might or might not have been used to pull a little cart full of babies and toddlers. Mrs Arthur could have no means of escape from Castle Orchard. The spacious coachhouse was empty except for the britchka. She could not, he thought, go even as far as Salisbury, let alone visit a neighbour, had there been such a thing as a neighbour in the remote vicinity of Castle Orchard. His own grey and his two hunters barely redressed the balance, but Dan was busy minding them, gratified to be in charge of so much space. Allington found him in the harness room, which he had swept and tidied. This too was empty, bar the saddles and bridles of his own horses, except for a side-saddle, which Dan had got down and was at that moment examining.

After a few moments the groom raised his sharp blue eyes to Allington’s face. Though he had been unable to hear his master enter the room, he had sensed his presence. He put the side-saddle over his arm and strode off with it in the direction of the looseboxes, occasionally glancing back to see that Allington was following him. It was usually easier to do what Dan expected of you than to go through the rigmarole of trying to explain you wanted to do something else, but Dan was intelligent, he could understand most things. Now he placed the side-saddle on the long-tailed grey, peeking down the arch of it to see how well it fitted. Allington looked himself. It was a good fit.

Phil ran as fast as he could towards the house, clutching his treasure to his breast. When he got to the carriage sweep he saw the Conway boys, Robert, Stevey, Frankie and the twins, Jacky and James, standing round the sundial. At the sight of Phil they stepped forward smartly and Stevey, who had a toy trumpet, blew a sort of squeak from its rusted interior and Frankie shook out a flag made from an old piece of blue silk sewed to a willow wand.

‘I am the second senior lieutenant,’ he said. ‘So I have to carry the colours.’

Robert, who was wearing the old red coat of a soldier of the line, said, ‘Well, Arthur, we have come to make you our prisoner unless you can run away quick.’

‘I’m going indoors,’ Phil said.

‘Oh no, you are not. That would be cheating.’

‘Cheating, cheating, cheating,’ Frankie called, twirling his colours about.

‘Cowardy cowardy cheat,’ said James.

‘Cowardy cowardy cheat,’ Jacky repeated.

‘We will tell in school,’ Stevey sang out, wiping the mouthpiece of his trumpet on the leg of his trousers.

‘What is the French?’ Jacky whispered to James.

‘I think it’s Phil,’ James answered, equally puzzled.

Phil eyed the distance to the door.

Frankie said, ‘I sticks me bayonet right into ’is belly an’ sort o’ jerks it up.’

Stevey said, ‘An’ the bodies in the breaches is right heaped up seven deep, is swollen an’ turned black.’

Robert, watching Phil, said, ‘What are you holding?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘Let me see.’

‘It’s mine. It’s treasure.’ Phil clutched his hands to his jacket.

‘What sort of treasure? I bet it’s rubbish.’

‘It’s real treasure. I found it in the castle, under a stone.’

Having said this, Phil made a sudden dart in the direction of the door but Robert stuck out his boot and tripped him so he sprawled on the gravel. He then rolled him over with his foot. Phil unclasped his hands and displayed a crown piece, three shillings and a sixpence.

Robert took the crown piece and examined it. He said, ‘Why, you little silly, it’s not treasure. It’s an ordinary crown piece with the King on it.’

‘It’s my treasure,’ Phil said, getting up carefully, rubbing his elbows, bruised. The tears started to run down his cheeks. ‘It’s mine, it’s mine. I found it for my mother.’

‘If you found it in the castle, then it belongs to Captain Allington. Everything is his now. Your mother will have to give it to him. Hasn’t your mother any money of her own?’

‘There wasn’t any money at Michaelmas.’

‘Your mother will have to beg. She will have to go in the street and ask people for money. Her clothes are all patched as it is.’

‘You can buy ever so many things with a crown,’ Stevey reflected, envious.

Robert handed the crown back to Phil, who hastily put it in his pocket.

Frankie said, ‘Ain’t you going to keep it?’

‘Certainly not,’ Robert replied, shocked. ‘That would be stealing.’

He turned his back on Phil and ordered his little troop to march. He had it in his mind to inspect the castle ruins for himself.

Phil, from the safety of the front door, shouted, ‘Captain Allington was at Waterloo. He was nearly dead. That’s what Pride told Annie and Annie told me. He was in Spain for years and then he was at Waterloo. So there! And he’s mine, not yours . . . so there!’

As Phil’s voice reached a crescendo, all the Conway boys turned, round-eyed. Even Robert could think of nothing to say.

After dinner, Emmy went to bed and Mrs Arthur read
Ivanhoe
to Phil. They sat on the sofa, Phil lolling against his mother, his head on her shoulder. They had lit a small fire.

There was a light tap on the door. Captain Allington walked in. He said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ and then went to the fireplace and put on more wood. ‘You may as well be warm. There’s plenty of wood.’

Mrs Arthur thought how kind he was. She was thinking of the conversation she had had with him that morning. She wished the painful subject of gambling and of his acquiring Castle Orchard had never arisen; her criticism seemed churlish but at the same time it could not be retracted.

‘That side-saddle in the harness room,’ he said. ‘I was wondering if it was yours?’

‘I expect it is. I used to ride.’ Mrs Arthur thought of the roan mare that had been her solace in the long, lonely days at Castle Orchard. They could afford a groom then, but groom and horse had all disappeared, after one Lady Day when Johnny had been down from London. He had never said anything – that was not his way – but he would have seen the mare as a means of getting a few guineas into his pocket. She was only surprised he had overlooked the saddle.

‘I was wondering if you would do me a favour.’

Mrs Arthur was delighted to think there was something she could do for him. ‘Of course. I’m so much in your debt.’

‘The agent knows I don’t intend to keep him long; it was fair to tell him, but he now doesn’t give me sufficient time. I want to get a better grasp on the boundaries between the farms. It occurred to me, if you could ride, you could show me yourself. But perhaps you don’t know them?’

‘I know them perfectly well.’ Mrs Arthur paused. She then felt, looking at his face, which he had the ability to make most remarkably expressionless, a useful thing at the gaming tables, that he had set her a tiny trap, into which she had plunged. She did not feel she could refuse him, but was he not a dangerous man, even more dangerous than Johnny Arthur had been at the age of twenty?

Allington said, ‘That saddle fits my grey. He’s well behaved.’

‘I haven’t ridden for quite a few years.’

‘Time to start again. You would be doing me a service.’

Mrs Arthur knew she could not refuse him, though she did not see herself as being of the least use to him. She thought of her years of incarceration at Castle Orchard.

She was about to reply when Phil said, ‘I must give my treasure to Captain Allington.’ He drew out of his pocket the crown piece, the three shillings and the sixpence.

Allington now took the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace, perfectly at home, it seemed, but was it not his in which to feel at home?

Phil went to stand by him, the coins in the palm of his hand. ‘My treasure. It was there under a stone. I gave it to my mother but she said as Castle Orchard belongs to you, the treasure is yours.’

‘That was a tiresome thing for your mother to say.’

‘Yes, I thought that.’

‘I most certainly refuse it. I shall give it to you and you shall give it to your mother.’

Mrs Arthur said, ‘If Captain Allington won’t take it, Phil, you must thank him and put it in your moneybox.’

‘But I only went to look for it so I could give it to you,’ Phil said sadly.

‘In that case, dearest, I shall take it.’ Mrs Arthur thought how it was not a large sum but useful. She thought of the journey to Westcott Park – if that journey were to be made – the coach tuppence a mile. She thought, with the little bit she had, it would be enough, but there would be nothing left over and there were other things needed.

Phil pressed the money gleefully into Mrs Arthur’s hand.

‘Perhaps it should be a loan, Phil,’ she said. ‘We could write it down: Mrs Arthur owes Philip Arthur eight shillings and sixpence. That would be an IOU but we shouldn’t make a habit of it, for we would too easily get into debt.’

‘No, I don’t want it. It’s for you.’

Allington felt enlightened as to exactly how short of money Mrs Arthur was, or she would never have allowed herself to accept it. He wished he was in the habit of carrying a greater sum in his pocket.

Phil said, ‘Are you disappointed it’s not really old treasure?’

‘No, modern treasure is much more useful. It’s kind of Captain Allington to let you have it. I expect some antiquarian visiting the ruins, for they do from time to time, flung down his coat on a hot day, and all his change rolled out.’

Allington said, standing up, ‘What time would suit you tomorrow? Would the latter part of the morning do? I could have Dan bring the horses round at eleven o’clock.’

‘If that is convenient for you.’ Though she had not actually agreed, agree she must.

Phil crept into his mother’s lap. He wished he was as little as Emmy and closed his eyes to see himself so small, too small ever to grow up. He then thought of his treasure. He had never closely scrutinised any money before and he wondered why it was the King, whom he had thought to be a dressy person, like his father, wore only some leaves in his hair.

He said to Mrs Arthur, ‘No shirt, no neckcloth, does he wear no clothes at all?’

‘Who, dearest?’

‘King George.’

‘He wears a laurel wreath.’

Allington looked at Phil. The child was draped in his mother’s arms; his thin legs dangled nearly to the floor, exposed from the rucking up of his trousers, and one of his little, heelless slippers was halfway across the carpet. He really was too old to sit in his mother’s lap.

Allington said, ‘Why are your legs bruised, Phil?’

Phil jumped up, staring wildly at Allington, and then hastily tugged at his trousers to hide his battered shins.