Castle Orchard (9 page)

‘Pickets are changed. Master says nothing. I goes back to me bivouac but waits to be arrested all the same. Is he tormenting me a-purpose? Don’t seem like him. He was the sort of officer soldiers respect and will follow anywhere, but he wasn’t loved like some are, being so sharp with it. Spanish Allington they called him and everyone knew who he was. He got a great performance out of us and we were proud of that.

‘I couldn’t sleep nor nothing. He’s lodging in a bit of a shed, very uncomfortable it looks too. I gets the courage to speak: I asks what he means to do with me. He says, “Nothing.” He says, if he had meant to do something he wouldn’t have let me wait – and hadn’t I known that? I says, “No”, and he says, “Well, you had your punishment then.”

‘I saw his coat laid down with a tear in. I says, “I’ll mend that.” I takes it away and I mends it so beautiful, I puts me whole heart in it. I even give that coat a kiss when no one ain’t looking.

‘When I takes it back I find his servant is gone sick, so I fetches water and makes the fire up and cooks the rations for him for he was alone that evening – rations that weren’t no better than ours, beef what the wild beasts might get their teeth round but not much else, seeing as the creature is butchered and ate all in one go. Cook, mend, clean, if that were all a soldier had to do, I’d be grand at it.

‘Thanked me he did, but he was writing in his pocketbook, much like the one he has now, and didn’t take too much notice. I was shy of him, though he were only a young fellow, a boy. Still, if you’ve been at war since you was sixteen or so, you’re quite growed-up. I won’t ever know how he come to let me off. What he risked was his officer’s commission. They could’ve chucked him out. ’Tis in the general orders. “Misplaced compassion” is what they call it. I’ve seen it written down.’

Pride at last drew to a halt and breathed an alcoholic sigh, before continuing. ‘He had a mule and a horse. He shared a goat with another officer. She were called Helen because she were a beauty, Master said, but I never did get to the bottom of that. A little Portuguese lad looked after her. Master kept a greyhound, sometimes two, what could bring in a hare, and he fished. There were trout enough if you could get them. It was a hard life. We moved too quick, see, marched day and night from time to time. The commissariat might never get up with the rations. Sometimes it were burning hot, all the heat of Spain and nothing but rocks as far as the eye could see, then it would be winter, rain and snow and ice. Men just dropped as they walked, officers too: fatigue and hunger don’t discriminate. They might give us a portion of wheat and I’d husk it and boil it up in the goat’s milk. Folks don’t know how it was. Captain Allington’s servant never came back. I sort of wormed my way into his place and he took me on official. Even when I got my discharge I never did leave, I turned up just the same.’

Pride leaned back, closed his eyes and repeated, ‘I never would leave my master, I turned up just the same.’

Emile, astonished, said, ‘Well, I never hear anything so unpleasant as what you tell me. Why do the soldiers go? It can’t be worth a red coat and a cockade in the hat. The coat gone dirty, the wages not paid . . .’ He drew to a halt. Though Quarter Day had passed and Mr Arthur had been to Castle Orchard to receive his rents, the only journey he undertook without his valet, Emile had not received his salary.

The month of July saw the close of the Season. To be in London was a solecism. Nobody who was in London was anybody. The parks were seer and dry, the streets dusty and unpleasant. Arthur noted that even Allington, unmoved by the habits of society, had retired from the scene, taking his long-tailed grey out into the country. Arthur had had difficulty in leaving his lodgings. He was besieged. His friends had bailed him out twice; he knew there was speculation his Michaelmas rents would not save him. He had won a thousand pounds at the gaming tables but it was nothing.

His anxiety to be out of London induced him to accept an invitation from the Ramptons to visit their country seat. He would have preferred Brighton, Scarborough or even Bath, but the obscurity of Bell Hill Abbey and its distance from the metropolis gave it practical appeal. He made his escape at dawn and young Rampton picked him up in the commodious Rampton travelling coach. Arthur had a hysterical fear of being arrested that went far beyond reason.

Bell Hill Abbey was on the Dorsetshire coast, and though Arthur professed to enter enthusiastically into plans for altering and extending the park, he was soon bored. The chief occupation was walking to the sea, and he cared neither for walking nor the sea. In the evening he played billiards or listened to his host, Rampton’s father, recite his own poetry, Arthur having evinced a polite interest in it and the encouragement taken too literally.

Arthur, incurring no expenses while being at Bell Hill and with his troublesome affairs beyond reach of him, thought his seaside idyll would have to continue for several months, at which juncture he could proceed to Castle Orchard for the Michaelmas Quarter Day. He had not allowed for Mrs Rampton, a fair beauty, whom he found neither interesting nor sympathetic. She ran the household, her father-in-law being a widower, with effortless efficiency, kept a sensible hold on the purse-strings and considered Johnny Arthur a poor addition to the establishment and likely to influence her husband towards unnecessary extravagance. In the last week of August she fell ill. It was nothing more than the troublesome complaint of a woman in the early stages of expecting a child. Though it was commonplace, and the idea of an heir was greeted with a bottle of champagne, she insisted on going to London to visit a doctor her family had previously patronised. Her mother told her it was completely unnecessary and the journey more hazardous than staying at home, but Mrs Rampton always had her own way.

Arthur had no wish to return to London, but if he did not travel with the Ramptons the expense of his journey would fall on himself. He was just contemplating the various choices of evil, when Rampton said, ‘If we all go together we could, without much deviation, call at your place.’

Arthur looked surprised, even astonished. He said, ‘There’s nothing at Castle Orchard to make anyone deviate from anything. My old retainers would have apoplexy if I turned up with visitors.’

‘We shouldn’t stay. We could drive out from Salisbury. I should be very much interested to see the Philosopher’s Tower.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Arthur said. ‘A mere heap of bricks.’

‘It is my belief, Mr Arthur,’ Mrs Rampton said, ‘you have no wish to entertain us.’

‘You are quite right,’ Arthur said, laughing, ‘No one goes to Castle Orchard. There are bats in the roof, snakes in the grass, sticklebacks in the river and frogs in the soup. Why, no meal is complete without frogs. They come up from the cellars like little green, slimy soldiers with slippery legs and tiny teeth. Not being French, our digestive systems can’t accommodate them.’

Johnny Arthur not at all amusing Mrs Rampton, and it being quite clear he had no intention of allowing them to visit even the Philosopher’s Tower, they all returned to London and Arthur was deposited at his lodging in Half Moon Street at a very unseasonable moment and with the fear of never again being able to leave them, except to bide indefinitely in the King’s Bench.

He was never one for finding entertainment in his own company and he was almost entirely confined to his rooms, Rampton his only visitor, at a loose end himself while his wife had endless consultations with her doctor. Arthur soon tired of Rampton, of his rooms and indeed of all else, announcing he might as well be in the King’s Bench Prison for it must afford greater amusement than anything else his life had to offer. Rampton idly agreed with him, at which juncture he became agitated, shocked and horrified. By the end of a week he was desperate for any distraction.

At the beginning of September, Captain Allington returned. This awoke Arthur’s curiosity, Rampton noticed, as could anything to do with Allington. However, Allington went up to his rooms and did not come out of them again.

‘Go and ask him to play chess with me, Rampton,’ Arthur said, his friend paying him his accustomed afternoon visit.

‘Certainly not. I’m not a servant,’ Rampton answered, laughing, ‘Besides, I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance.’

‘It would rectify that.’

‘Send your valet, write him a note, go yourself.’ He no longer treated Arthur with quite the same respect.

Arthur went to the door and put his head out. ‘Perhaps I imagined he was here.’

‘Of course he is here.’

‘He’s probably drunk.’

‘Then you may win the chess, if he is sufficiently so, unless you consider that dishonourable.’

Arthur did not consider it at all dishonourable. Despite past experiences he knew he could win a game of chess against Allington should luck favour him: he believed in luck under the most unlikely of circumstances. At that moment he saw Pride coming up the stairs.

Arthur called out to him, ‘Will you send my compliments to Captain Allington and ask him to step down for a game of chess.’

‘Not today I won’t. He’s not fit,’ Pride said, far from politely. He was bustling and busy; knowing Allington despised Arthur, he despised him too.

Arthur, indignant, said, ‘Mind your tongue or I shall go up and speak to Captain Allington myself.’

‘Not today, not tomorrow. I wouldn’t open the door to you, not if you was His Majesty King George. The day after that he will be well enough to see you.’

Pride continued on his way. Arthur heard him lock Allington’s door.

‘What a cheeky fellow,’ Rampton said. ‘Fancy employing him.’

‘He is indeed very saucy,’ Arthur said, shaking his head sadly. ‘He’s drunk.’

‘But he did not sound drunk.’

Arthur, ignoring this, said, ‘I shall catch Allington the day after tomorrow and win a game of chess. I feel it in my bones. I shall win—’

He was about to say ‘win back all I owe him’ but managed to contain it.

September was hotter than August. There was an Indian summer. Arthur felt like a rat in a cage, neither able to escape his rooms nor his affairs. His landlord dropped him a hint he was tired of the rabble of debt collectors at the door. Arthur was aggrieved: he thought they had reached an understanding with each other. Rampton began to think better of seeing him but, for want of much else to do, he still visited. Arthur constantly changed his clothes as if he had a row of flattering engagements to attend. Ever optimistic, he awaited a miracle and somehow he concluded that Allington, as the only person available, was to provide it. He listened all the time for the sound of his footsteps above, or the noise of his door opening.

On the fourth day he sent a note with Emile asking Allington to play chess or any other game he fancied. He was sufficiently desperate to have asked him to dine, but the notice was short and he thought he could not provide a good enough dinner. He hoped Rampton might offer to fund the dinner, but this he did not do, though he had brought Arthur a present of some good cheese and a bottle of wine.

Allington not immediately appearing, Arthur said, restlessly fidgeting about his room: ‘It’s certainly better he doesn’t come. I don’t like the fellow above half.’

He was just resigning himself to Allington neither replying to his note nor coming in person, when Emile said, ‘Captain Allington, sir.’

There was nothing more incongruous than Captain Allington in Arthur’s rooms. Despite a short bout of his usual complaint, he looked well. He had been riding his long-tailed grey on a perambulation round the south of England, thirty to forty miles a day in three stages, starting before breakfast and breaking the journeys wherever he found good stabling. He had spent a week or so with that friend of his, Major Wilder, who had come out to Brussels to attend to him after Waterloo. The sun had browned his face. He was dressed plainly in a lightweight, dark grey coat, a cotton waistcoat and loose trousers. Arthur introduced Rampton to him; the young man was reduced by the utter indifference with which Allington surveyed him, though he gave him a small, polite bow. Rampton had always known himself to be a superior being.

‘Well, Arthur,’ Allington said, ‘you are a sucker for punishment.’

‘But will you oblige me? I should like a game of chess.’

‘I shall do nothing unless we open the window.’ Allington went himself and pushed up the sash as high as it would go, for the room reeked of Arthur’s perfumes. He leaned out for a moment before turning and adding, ‘And we will not play for stakes.’

‘But we can’t play without stakes,’ Arthur said, indignant.

‘Why not? Are we not playing to amuse ourselves?’

‘Oh, but we must have some sort of a stake to put an edge on the game.’

‘It may put an edge on your game, but it does nothing for mine. I don’t object to playing with you, but it is a farce if we play even for a penny, unless you are disposed towards honouring your debts.’

Arthur looked uneasy.

Allington said, ‘It is my intention to leave London.’

‘I am a little short at the minute,’ Arthur said awkwardly. ‘It is not quite convenient.’ He wished Allington would leave London forever and take the IOUs with him.

‘Oh, I am not expecting you to pay, but I refuse to continue the farce. A debt of honour is not a debt of honour when left in your hands.’

This insult stung Rampton more than it did Arthur. He wondered how Arthur could stand there without defending himself.

‘Where is the board?’ Allington continued. ‘Are we to play or not?’

‘By all means, but we must have stakes. I shall set them. If you win you shall have Castle Orchard. If I win you must forgive me my debts.’

Rampton gasped with horror. He jumped up and cried out, ‘For God’s sake, Arthur, you must be mad!’

‘Not at all. I might owe Allington the worth of the property, or thereabout. I am not sure of the actual amount.’

‘Neither am I,’ Allington said, surprisingly. ‘It’s a long time since I troubled to count. I have the IOUs, of course. Eight years is a long time for you to play losing games.’

‘Is that the length of time?’ Arthur asked.