A Regimental Affair (28 page)

‘Does Caithlin know of last night?’

‘She does not.’

‘Then you will have to tell her soon.’

‘I could just wait for the news to pass by the usual means.’

Hervey sighed. ‘I fancy this is not an event to be retailed by the canteen route.’

Armstrong lit his pipe. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure. The canteen often as not gets things in a proper light. It gets the truth from below as well as above – if you know what I mean.’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Hervey thought for a moment. ‘And I counsel you to have a great care. This business will bring down many more than just me.’

‘You ain’t done yet, sir!’ said Armstrong with a shrug.

‘Perhaps I deserve to be, Serjeant Armstrong. Perhaps if I’d waited for the guide—’

‘Aw, come on, sir. That’s not how we were taught. Major Edmonds would’ve tongue-lashed anybody if they’d ever said they were waiting for
orders
, let alone a guide!’

It was true enough. ‘But I went at the beach too bald-headed.’

‘We’d lost too much time. We couldn’t have stalked it.’

Armstrong’s eye was what every officer wanted in his serjeant – and more. ‘But the lights, Serjeant Armstrong, the lights.’

Armstrong made to spit, and then thought better of it. ‘What about the lights?’

‘Where would any sentry be posted?’

Armstrong didn’t have to be pressed. ‘That was unlucky. A few seconds more and we’d have had the advantage. And that first ball to fell the revenue man like that – it was the devil’s own.’

‘I was still too slow.’

‘Look, sir, yon was a cannily posted sentry. In any case, we stood our ground and they had to abandon theirs.’

Hervey knew it. But in the end – as Lord Towcester had contemptuously pointed out – all they had succeeded in doing was scattering the woolpacks and sending the French back into the Channel. They were not in possession of a single bit of contraband, wet or dry, or any of its handlers, two of his dragoons were dead, and another three might join them by the day’s end.

‘Finch’ll live, sir, never fear.’

Hervey smiled at the prospect. ‘You know, I believe he was more afraid of being left on that beach than he was at Corunna.’

Armstrong relit his pipe. ‘Dying in the dark like that – they’re all afeard of it. What’s it they say? There are no atheists at night with a muzzle jammed their way!’

‘Thank God that Hill and Greenwood were single men.’

‘But they’d mothers, like as not.’

It seemed perverse to wish instead that, like Johnson, they were sons of the orphanage. Yet Johnson had told him many times that he could never be a soldier with a mother anguishing for him.

Caithlin placed a pot of coffee in front of them. ‘Who had mothers?’

‘None of
our
troop!’ replied her husband, with a smirk.

‘Jack Armstrong!’ She put her hand to her breast.

‘Just a manner of speaking, love.’ He looked, indeed, a shade chastened. ‘Sit down a minute, lass.’

‘Only a minute, mind.’

They drew up a chair for her.

Hervey lost no time recounting events. By the end, he felt immeasurably better, for the honest company of the Armstrongs was the best of antidotes to Lord Towcester’s spite.

Henrietta returned some hours earlier than expected. She looked
troubled as her husband came into her sitting room, and she did not rise to greet him. ‘Princess Charlotte is unwell,’ she sighed, inclining her cheek to him as he bent to kiss her.

Hervey was sorry to hear it, of course, but it seemed strange that this should bring such gloom. ‘What is the cause?’

Henrietta looked at him, surprised. ‘Matthew, she is eight months with child!’

‘But how is she troubled?’

‘She has had two miscarriages, you know.’

Hervey did not know.

‘And she grew very large in the summer, so that Sir Richard Croft had to restrict her diet severely, and draw off blood each day. And I think this has greatly depressed her spirits, for she spoke very freely of her fears.’

‘You saw her?’

‘Only briefly. She had asked me to take tea, along with several others, but then Sir Richard insisted on bleeding her again.’

Henrietta had herself engaged Sir Richard Croft to obstetricate, for he was acknowledged as pre-eminent in that field, as indeed the physician should be who was to deliver the King’s first greatgrandchild.

‘The princess is in the best of hands,’ Hervey pointed out.

‘But ultimately she is in God’s hands,’ sighed Henrietta. ‘And He may have designs that are unfathomable.’

Hervey could not gainsay it, but he saw no profit in contemplating the melancholy fact. He moved his chair closer and took her hand. She smiled at him a little thinly, but even her anxiety could not dull the blush that had come in this third month of her own pregnancy. She had not yet any swelling that he observed, except he fancied in her bosom, and her hair shone like a stallion’s coat. He had never imagined that her attraction to him could increase so.

They kissed long, and in doing so she seemed to forget her disquiet, and he his own troubles. Why might they not forget them a little longer? He rang for Hanks and said they would not dine, and that her ladyship’s maid might be dismissed for the evening.

The next morning, Henrietta’s spirits seemed largely restored, so Hervey hazarded to tell her of the events of the beach, and Lord
Towcester’s reaction. She comprehended everything at once – the extent and implications, the limitations and possibilities – and at once she resolved to act. She had extricated Hervey from arrest in Ireland when his excess of conscience and zeal had provoked a jealous authority, and she saw no reason why she should not do the same now. To Henrietta, indeed, the exercise of influence was but a normal part of life. She had friends and she had artfulness, and the deployment of both for the good of her husband was entirely proper to her. True, she had been expecting to use her connections for his advancement rather than for his rescuing, but it was of no matter: the methods were essentially the same.

Hervey was brightened by her spirits. They had, indeed, been restored in the intimacy of their embraces the night before, but that she should be so buoyant now after hearing of his miserable condition seemed remarkable. Princess Charlotte was not mentioned once throughout their breakfast.

‘Shall you rest today, or do we go for a drive?’ he asked, quite carefree, indeed. ‘I have no duties to detain me.’ A dragoon without his sword – he did not count for anything.

‘A drive? Perhaps. Later, though, for I’ve letters to write, and I should not put them off.’

He poured himself more coffee, and then Hanks brought in the
Morning Herald
and a letter for Henrietta from Longleat. While she looked over the letter’s contents – local news of a general kind from Lady Bath – he turned the
Herald
’s pages. One report caught his eye at once:

We learn of a very serious Breach of the King’s Peace in the County of Sussex two nights last, wherein there took place a desperate clash of arms between His Majesty’s forces and a
descente
of French smugglers, of whom some sources have it that their numbers were close on a hundred. A running fight with as many of His Majesty’s dragoons has left a score of dead on both sides
.

Hervey sighed. The scribbler’s art could ennoble the meanest affair.

‘What is it, my love?’ asked Henrietta, the first two pages of her own news not detaining her long.

He read it to her.

‘It sounds . . . heroic.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘There were neither a hundred Frenchmen nor a hundred dragoons – though there should have been.’

‘Matthew, my love, if someone wants to say there were a hundred Frenchmen opposed to you, then I should not be in any great hurry to disabuse them!’

He smiled again. ‘No, perhaps not.’

‘What does
The Times
say?’

‘We do not appear to have it.’

‘Then we shall have to wait to see if they have any advance on a hundred!’

Henrietta’s self-possession seemed remarkable. She appeared not the least anxious for her own situation in connection with her husband’s. Hervey was about to make some endearment when Hanks entered again and announced that Private Johnson wished urgently to see him. Henrietta nodded, and Hervey bid him show him in.

Johnson was in best dress (he would explain that it was the surest way of being allowed to pass by the town patrols, who assumed him to be on official business). ‘Good morning, your ladyship, ma’am. Good morning, Cap’n ’Ervey, sir. I thought you’d be wanting t’know that we’ve got all t’orses back, ’Arkaway an’ all!’

Hervey was astonished. ‘How in heaven’s name—’

‘They’d all run east, and down into that valley that ’as that river.’

‘The Winterbourne?’

‘Ay, sir. That’s why Cap’n Strickland’s troop couldn’t see ’ide nor ’air of ’em from t’turnpike.’

‘And who found them?’

Johnson smiled even broader. ‘They all came into Ovingdean trottin’ behind t’Dover stage yesterday morning – still saddled. T’livery there caught ’em all.’

This was good news indeed. And it would draw the sting as far as Lord Towcester was concerned – somewhat, at least. ‘Where’s Harkaway now?’

‘Back in ’is stall, right as a trivet.’

‘But with one more leg?’

Johnson smiled. ‘I’m glad yer not too out of sorts, then, Cap’n ’Ervey!’

Henrietta smiled too. ‘I shall go to my sitting room to finish my letter, and you may talk all morning of corralling horses. I shall ask Hanks to bring more coffee.’

When she had gone, Hervey bid Johnson sit at the table and tell him what other news there was.

‘Not a lot, sir. Cap’n Strickland is in arrest, too, though.’

‘
Not a lot?
Just another troop leader arrested?’

Johnson frowned. ‘I thought you meant news in t’troop.’

It was always well to remember the difference. A private man thought little beyond his own troop. ‘
Any
news, man!’

‘Crowner’s ’quest on Greenwood an’ ’Ill today.’

‘Is it, indeed? That is very prompt. Where?’

‘I think they said it were at t’assembly rooms.’

‘At what time?’

‘Twelve, I think. Are you going to go, sir?’

‘Most certainly! I can’t think why I’ve not been called to give evidence.’

Johnson looked thoughtful. ‘Are ye sure y’
ought
to be gooin’?’

‘Just pretend you never heard me say it. What other news?’

‘There’s been a man from t’
Times
sniffin’ round since yesterday mornin’, but nobody’s said owt as far as I know. But ’e’s buying drink and offering money. It won’t be long before some gobby devil falls for it.’

‘And what might he say, Johnson?’ Hervey had the distinct sense that his groom felt there was something to withhold.

‘Anything ’e wants to ’ear. That there were two hundred Frenchies, led by Bonaparte himself!’

‘So you don’t mean that some might say we were wandering about the downs like lost Jews?’ Hervey’s concern for the good opinion of the canteen was genuine, as well as for the mischief the opposite opinion could make.

Johnson shrugged. ‘I’ve been lost in worse places. Isn’t that what ’appens in t’dark?’

‘Not if you’re an officer,’ smiled Hervey wryly.

‘But at least y’knew where y’was gooin’. I’ve known some officers as didn’t even know that!’

Johnson was ever frank. It was one of the reasons he was still a private – and one of the reasons he was still Hervey’s groom. ‘And is there anything else?’

‘Oh, ay, there is: t’RM asks if you’d like to ’elp ’im wi’ a new ’orse ’e’s just bought. Up on t’downs, away from things.’

Hervey was touched, for the riding master’s invitation to schooling sounded like a message of support. ‘Please tell Mr Broad that I should like to very much. And do you think you might look out some clothes for the inquest meanwhile?’

‘Ay, right you are then, sir.’

Johnson left through the door that Henrietta opened. She smiled at him, as she always did, and then turned to her husband with a look of some distress. ‘Matthew, have you not received any word from Wiltshire of late?’

‘No. Is there something wrong?’

‘Lady Bath writes that your father is to be summoned before the consistory court.’

Hervey’s heart sank again. ‘But all that was finished. He made his peace with the archdeacon months ago.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Evidently it was not a lasting peace.’

‘There is no mistake? I’ve heard nothing from Elizabeth, and she for certain would have written.’

‘There is no mistake, Matthew. Lady Bath gives dates and places – here, read it.’

He took the sheet. It read plainly enough. ‘I’ll apply for leave to travel to Horningsham at once.’ Then he frowned. ‘I’ll not be granted it of course. I’d better write at once.’