Castle Orchard Read Online Free Page B

something on his mind. ‘I defy anyone to say I am not up to the mark. My tailor is the best, yet you say you couldn’t make a fashionable man of me.’ He tried not to sound as peeved as he felt.
    Arthur again laughed. ‘My dear fellow, it wasn’t my intention to offend you. It’s just that you are a married man. Whatever induced you to take a wife so young? A married man is nothing, for he’s saddled himself with the very worst thing – domesticity. Didn’t you tell me you aren’t free this evening, for you take your wife to the opera? Domesticity is the end, the bottom, the disaster, the bills, the housemaids, the whooping cough, the child once a year. A mistress one may have, some charming little nothing – I have had one myself when I have been in funds – but a wife is the ultimate rope by which a fashionable man may hang himself.’
    Arthur looked teasingly at his young friend, who went away with a long face to take Mrs Rampton to the opera. Arthur himself spent the next hour in adjusting a fresh white neckcloth, a frill of a shirt, a narrow pair of trousers, a coat nipped in at the waist, puffed at the shoulder and lean at the cuff, and the rose-pink waistcoat.
    When satisfied, he peeked through his door and finding that most of his tormentors had gone away for their dinners, he went downstairs and into the street and from thence to his club in St James’, where he might quickly lose the little bit of money lent him.
     
    Captain Allington was craning out of the window as Arthur walked away down Half Moon Street. The sight of this gentleman, or rather the sight of his very tall, very curlybrimmed hat, evinced no change in his expression. He was not interested in Arthur, though occasionally the words of the Irish songwriter passed unbidden through his head:
     
    ‘Quite a new sort of creature, unknown yet to scholars, With heads so immovably stuck in shirt-collars.
    That seats, like our music-stools, soon must be found
    them,
    To twirl, when the creatures, may wish to look round
    them.’
    He was leaning from the window in order to see the trees of Green Park, noting, despite the beautiful blue of the June sky, there was still the wisp of a haze induced by too many coal-burning stoves.
    He turned his back on the window and surveyed his room. It contained an armchair, two large watercolours of the Cornish coast, a great many books, a writing desk and a table. On his desk lay an unopened letter, addressed to himself, and on the table a large glass bottle half full of sixpences. He crossed the room, picked up the letter, broke the seal and unfolded it, without any appearance of haste. It was, as such, the third he had received.
     
    My dearest, dearest Allington,
    Please allow me to speak. Every hair on your head is precious to me. I love you, I love you. Please, please listen. How could you think so ill of me?
    I know it must seem strange to you to find Smythe here at breakfast. He and Sir John Parkes came here last night, and, not finding you, settled to play cards. I offered them what wine I had, which I thought you would wish, for you never have minded my entertaining, but they were soon drunk and would not leave. What could I do? I retired to bed, they fell asleep and caused no further trouble. Sir John left only a few minutes before you arrived. Pray, believe me.
    You have never told me you harbour any great passion for me. I assumed you had an affection for me at the least. You may not love me, but have our hearts not beat as one? Does that count for nothing?
    You told me you wished to be able to rely on my fidelity. I am innocent, so innocent, of all you think.
    Yours, your most devastated,
    Lucy Marietti
    Allington screwed this letter up and chucked it in the wastepaper basket without anger or excitement, perhaps disgust. He said, half out loud, ‘Very theatrical, but what should one expect from an actress? No, I won’t see her. There would be tears and she’s not telling the