Castle Orchard by E A Dineley Page B

French.’
    ‘You are our prisoner. We are going to shoot you, because you are a deserter and that is the worst thing you can be. On goes the blindfold and then you are shot by ever so many soldiers at once. You are blown into so many little bits and nobody ever remembers who you were after that, because you’re nothing.’
    ‘You wait for the bang, bang, bang with your blindfold on and your insides drop out and they are like the insides of a rabbit, pink with green bits.’
    ‘And purple bits.’
    ‘But first he must be our prisoner.’
    ‘We will lock him up.’
    ‘And forget him.’
    ‘And the rats will gnaw his flesh.’
    ‘When he is shot, all the other soldiers will look at the little bits of him that are left and remember not to be cowards and run away. You are a coward because you are afraid of the river.’
    ‘And then the birds will peck his eyes out.’
    And so it went on until such time as the Conway boys thought of their dinner.
    Phil wandered home, ragged and dirty, woebegone, unable to say why he always had to be the French, except that he was a coward and afraid of the river.
    Indoors, his mother was writing a letter. She looked up as he came in and said, ‘Dearest, what a mess and why so sad?’
    He went to her and she put an arm round him. She never said, ‘You have been crying,’ for she thought this something a boy might not like to have pointed out to him. Instead she said, ‘Why play with the Conways if you don’t enjoy it?’
    Unfortunately, Phil did not know how not to play with the Conways, nor did he know how to explain this to his mother. He said nothing, for he must look after his mother and not tell her all the horrid things the Conways said, in case she got bad dreams.
    ‘Go and change your clothes while I finish my letter to your Aunt Louisa, then we’ll have dinner.’
    Phil went away and his mother picked up the pen and put it back in the ink. She thought of the length of dusky pink silk sent her by her sister, complete with a pattern for the latest mode: low neck, slender waist, short sleeves ruched and puffed and further ruching at the hem. Whenever did Louisa think she might wear such a thing? But it was not Louisa’s fault, for did she not deceive Louisa, skating and sliding over the truth? Louisa knew much but never the whole, for why should she worry her half-sister with the whole?
    She wrote,
The silk is beautiful
. This could be stated unequivocally. After a pause she continued:
     
    May I be clever enough to make it up. I have made a little jacket for Phil. He fancies a military cut but he overestimates my tailoring skills. I dare say I can add a little braid without making the thing ridiculous. Phil and the Conway boys only play at soldiers, always the French and the English, the Battle of Waterloo, etc., though he seems cast down by it. Emmy is well and shows no interest in battles. Westcott Park may need an heir but I am glad you have a little daughter even if she is another little daughter. There is a lot to be said for daughters, and the heir can come later.
    And so the letter went on, everything to be made light of. Having finished it, she reached for her journal. In it she wrote:
     
    Midsummer Day, 24 June, Quarter Day and J. not down yet. He will be here tomorrow. I do wonder how he thinks we can manage on so little. I told Louisa I made a coat for Phil but not that I made it from the better parts of my old cloak.
    She then turned to the accounts but remembering it was time for dinner, she allowed herself only a cursory glance at the figures.
     
    Allington, seated by the window in his own rooms, was feeling better. His recovery was accompanied by his usual sense of euphoria at the relief from the pain, but he sat quietly reading all the same. In compensation for what he considered his incarceration in his lodgings in Half Moon Street, he occupied himself with John Keats and was happily transported. He read of beeches green and shadows numberless with intense