Free Castle Orchard by E A Dineley Page A

began;
    So it is now I am a man;
    So be it when I shall grow old,
    Or let me die!
    The child is father of the man . . .
    Here Allington stopped and laid the book down on his lap. ‘The child is father of the man’, he repeated to himself. ‘It is a wise father that knows his own child’. How complicated, the web of one’s inheritance and the stuff of which one was made. Had his childhood made him what he was? Or was he contrived entirely from that unknown being, Captain Frederick Robert John Allington, whose mother had been Spanish, which accounted for his appearance? That Captain Allington had died in Flanders fighting the French in 1793, a proceeding he himself had endeavoured to mimic more than twenty years later. The evidence of Spanish blood had been sufficient to convince him he was no son of Lord Tregorn. Even the soldiers, amongst themselves, called him ‘Spanish Allington’. It was not useful to cross-examine poets. They led one down unexpected labyrinths.
    He got up and walked about the room. It was time he got out of London for a while. His portrait was there, leaned up against the wall. He still had not looked at it. Had he been cowardly for putting off the moment? He took a paperknife and carefully sliced down the wrapping, peeling it back. The process reminded him of a dressing eased from a wound.
    A portrait of a young man in a Light Dragoon regiment ought to be neither remarkable nor painful, but painful it was. It jerked him backwards to what he had been, to lost youth, let alone lost health. The uniform was buttoned across the chest so there was nothing more than a rim of the brighter colour against the sombre blue of the jacket. He was bare-headed, cradling the felt shako in his arm, its short plume of red and white barely visible. There was a hint of the lavish gold shoulder belt, the epaulettes and the girdle, but little to distract from the face.
    Allington said, in much the same tone as he used to the duns that flocked round Arthur’s door, ‘Good day, stranger.’
    His younger self looked back at him with impatient eyes.
    He remembered his mood at the time, impatient at sitting in the Bond Street studio, impatient with having a new uniform, impatient at the loss of his campaigning life and impatient at not being shipped straight to the wars in America. His stepfather had achieved for him the one thing that made him the envy of his fellows, a transfer to a cavalry regiment, but, unlike his fellows, he did not want it. He could not afford it. Lord Tregorn had paid for the uniform and insisted on the portrait, but he needed more horses, a charger, and the sort of allowance necessary for living with a smart set of officers. It was at this juncture he slid into the habit of raising the stakes when he played a game of whist or chess. It was not a perfect arrangement but it enabled him to pay his way.
    How young he was, and what risks he had taken. The adventure, the constant activity, how much he had loved it. Looking at the picture, he wished he had been painted, if he had to be painted, in the brown uniform of an officer in the Portuguese service, but it would not have accorded with the grand notions of his stepfather, for whom he might have been some sort of plaything, to be shown off when suitable. He began to think of his company of Portuguese caçadores. Where were they now? Tending their olives, their vines, their sheep and goats, or so he hoped.
    Pride came in. He took one look at the picture and burst into tears. After a moment he tried to summon some feeble self-control but, aided by alcohol, he only wept the more.
    Allington said, ‘Go to your room, Pride. I shan’t want any assistance. You may occupy yourself by writing to your mother.’
    This was the ultimate punishment and they both reflected on Pride not getting his sixpence. Allington, irritated by the world in general and more particularly by himself and his own servant, took himself away to the boxing salon to give serious