Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (8 page)

He sat up. His head swam a little. It was not surprising; it swam each time. But otherwise he felt in hale enough condition. He got up, swaying slightly, even having to steady himself on a bed post for an instant, then went to his window to see where the sun was. The day was overcast, however. He felt at his face: the stubble was thicker than an evening’s. He decided to put on his dressing gown and go to bring hot water from the kitchen.

At the foot of the stairs he saw his sister.

‘Matthew! You are better. I thought you would sleep for ever!’

He knew at once. It was as it had been in India in the early months: sleep, or delirium, a full cycle of day and night, without any sense of time’s passing. ‘I … I was thinking it only morning.’

Elizabeth’s apparition was somehow troubling. The candles were not yet lit, but he could see well enough, and he saw a different Elizabeth. He had never thought of her in other than capable terms, his sister, always there, always knowing what to do, and never for herself. He had not observed the passing of the years, though he had been all too conscious of standing in the way of her prospects. But now he noticed how … grown to maturity she was. Gone were the ringlets; her face was that of a woman – not a young woman, by which he meant girlish, but a woman of consequence, handsome, secure, as if possessed of title or family. He wished for all his heart that it were so, for none was more deserving of it than she.

By the same light, too, Elizabeth could see her brother’s pallor. ‘I’m not sure you should be up even now,’ she said, though without the tone that commanded him to return to bed. She knew her brother well enough to judge these things prudentially. ‘In any case, we’re not to dine until late; father is gone to Longleat. I’ll have Hannah draw your bath.’

Hervey did not object to that.

‘And I shall fetch you tea. Go and sit by the fire.’

He had no objection to sitting by the fire either, but the prospect of tea was somehow unappealing. ‘I think I shall have a glass of claret, Elizabeth. Is there any bread?’

She nodded. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll bring it.’

‘Where is mother, and Georgiana?’

‘They’re both gone to Longleat too, though they went on foot. Lady Bath generally sees them of a Thursday if she’s at home. She sends them back in a carriage towards now.’

Hervey inclined his head approvingly. It was good that Lady Bath saw fit to receive Georgiana, for although Henrietta had lived as one with the family, there were three Bath daughters, of whom one still was at Longleat.

He sat by the fire. Whitehead had made it up well. It gave off a good heat and he was grateful of it, for he ran a temperature yet, and he knew that the shivers could come on again easily. In his condition he reacted excessively to cold air which as a rule would not trouble him.

Elizabeth returned with a decanter, a loaf of bread and a jar of pork dripping. ‘The wine is very possibly fine, for I hadn’t the time to search for the everyday.’

Hervey took a good taste, and smiled. ‘Very possibly. You had better not tell father!’

‘He’ll know right enough: Whitehead’s entering it in the cellar book this moment.’

‘Whitehead reads and writes, does he? I don’t ever recall it.’

‘Father had Mrs Strange instruct him. She said she never saw a man take to it so.’

He took another good taste, and helped himself to bread and dripping.

‘He may not have Francis’s ways,’ explained Elizabeth, ‘but he’s a fine manservant. Papa is very fortunate.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it, and I never said ought about his ways. I’ve always found him obliging in the extreme.’

‘And Georgiana likes him too. He’s very good with her.’

‘I am glad to hear it. But see, you’ll have heard of the annuity that Daniel Coates bequeathed? Father ought now to be able to employ a lady’s maid.’

Elizabeth looked uncertain. ‘He is very exercised by the size of Daniel Coates’s fortune. When he agreed to be executor he had no idea it would be to such an estate. The responsibility troubles him.’

‘I told him he should appoint you to be chairman of the trustees.’

Elizabeth nodded. ‘He told me. And I replied that I should have no objection. He also said that you had told him that you did not intend leaving Georgiana in our care for much longer.’

Hervey looked awkward. ‘Ah. I had not meant it to sound so decided.’

‘How had you meant it to sound, Matthew? Either Georgiana remains with me or she goes to Hounslow with you. It is not difficult, is it? You have a governess in mind, I suppose?’

He looked even more awkward. ‘A governess, yes, well … no, not really, not yet; but a governess there may be. I am not certain of the arrangements.’

Elizabeth, who might have been put out, seemed instead vaguely amused by her brother’s faltering thoughts of taking up the paternal reins. ‘Perhaps you intend that Private Johnson does that duty, in between seeing to your uniforms and horses?’

Hervey raised an eyebrow, thinking to add ‘And seeing to whatever it was that concerned the gentlemen from Bow Street!’ He recalled that he might have to exercise himself in that regard when he returned. ‘Georgiana would be happy enough with Johnson!’

Elizabeth ignored the tease. ‘Well, I am ever at your disposal. And, as you say, Daniel Coates’s bequest will enable Mama and Papa to employ a fuller establishment, so there would be no reason why I should not come to Hounslow with Georgiana. I imagine, too, that I might even be of help to you in respect of your duties in command?’

Hervey had not considered this, and he chided himself. Elizabeth was not a woman of fashion, but she was by no means incapable of taking her place in any drawing room. She would indeed be of help; with a certain outlay, she would even be an adornment. But, command was temporary; he had no expectations of remaining at the head of the regiment beyond the season. Except, of course, that he now possessed the means of purchasing the lieutenant-colonelcy for himself.

That reminded him. ‘I really must write post-haste to Lord George Irvine.’

Elizabeth knew the business exactly. ‘Shall your colonel approve?’

It was a good question. Hervey had every reason to believe he would. Lord George’s solicitude on his returning from Portugal, his immediate entrusting of acting command to him, spoke volumes. And, indeed, there were very nearly two decades’ association in peace and war. These were no mere things. But the lieutenant-colonelcy of a regiment of cavalry in peacetime was a much coveted prize. There would be no shortage of bidders.

‘I believe he will.’

‘And ten thousand shall be sufficient?’

Hervey was pulled up short again, as ever, by Elizabeth’s percipience. There had been much speculation in the mess about the figure. Over time, officers had found more or less legal means to circumvent the regulations, and the price had crept up, whatever the Horse Guards said. Ten thousand
ought
to be plenty but rumour was that the Ninth had just gone for
sixteen
thousand, and if that were so then the Sixth could not cost very much less, and perhaps even more, since they were just returned from India and therefore enjoyed the prospect of long and agreeable service at home.

‘I think so, yes, with my own captaincy taken into account and a little extra.’

‘You don’t then have poor Benedict Strickland’s majority?’ Elizabeth knew the regulations only partially.

Hervey shook his head. ‘If the enemy rather than the Oxford mail had killed him then I should have.’

‘Well, I do not imagine that your amiable Colonel Joynson would wish to sell to anyone else once he knows that you are entering the lists.’

That was a highly questionable proposition. Hervey had not the slightest doubt that if command were in Eustace Joynson’s gift he would have had it by now. But the lieutenant-colonelcy, although it had come to Joynson free on the death of Sir Ivo Lankester at Bhurtpore, was now the means of his subsistence in retirement. ‘Frankly, Elizabeth, he’d be a fool to part with it for a penny less than the maximum bid.’

‘Entering the lists’ reminded him too: there was a procedure. He was meant to have submitted his name in the quarterly returns – ‘suitable for promotion and willing to purchase’. It was for the general officer commanding the London District, now that Hervey was acting in command, to certify both, and the appropriate financial guarantees, but he himself had to instigate it. And he would have to make sure that the recommendation for promotion was to lieutenant-colonel, for he held the substantive rank of captain; his majority had come by brevet and by temporary assignment as second in command. There must be no bureaucratic slip: he held more than enough service to qualify for promotion to the lieutenant-colonelcy. Except that the deuced rules had changed, had they not? That is what Myles Vanneck had told him.

He made to get up.

‘Sit still, Matthew! What is it you want?’

‘The portfolio by my bed.’

Elizabeth went herself rather than ring for Hannah.

When she returned Hervey began searching the portfolio with a degree of anxiety. Then he found it, an extract from
The King’s Regulations, 1824.
The adjutant had marked the apposite passage: ‘The quarterly returns certified by Commanding Officers are to be the only communication made on the subject of promotion by purchase, and when a resignation is sent in, it will be considered unconditional and irrevocable and no successor is to be pointed out or recommended.’

He put down the file and cursed to himself. Did anyone take notice of this? In the past when an officer wanted to sell out it was all arranged decorously by the regimental agents: the one would name his price, another would offer to pay, and the colonel of the regiment would approve it. Now it seemed that
everything
was to be regulated by the Horse Guards. Just when the former system would have favoured him, for a change. It was so novel an idea – the Horse Guards’ interference – he could hardly think how a regiment might properly regulate its officers if its colonel could not have his say in who was to be commissioned or advanced in his own fief.

He cursed beneath his breath. No, there was a way round every regulation: that much he had learned, and should have learned a dozen years before. He would write at once to his friend John Howard at the Horse Guards; and, of course, he would press his case in person.

‘Elizabeth, I fear I shall have to return to Hounslow rather sooner than I had expected.’

His sister looked puzzled. ‘But you said you would be able to spend a little time with us.’

Hervey looked preoccupied. ‘Yes … indeed. I’m sorry. But something has most unquestionably come up.’

STABLEMATES

Hounslow, afternoon, 18 March

Hervey reached the cavalry barracks just as watch setting began. He had forgotten that today it would be at three o’clock since there was a levee at Windsor and every other dragoon was required for duty there. For all but the commanding officer the gates would remain shut until the inspections were complete and the guard posted, any who had business in or out of the barracks seeing to it that they were clear of the guardhouse by the orderly trumpeter’s ‘parade for picket’, otherwise suffering the delay. It had been a long drive, but if he had remembered the advanced time of guard mounting he would have adjusted their speed over the last mile or so. He would exercise his privilege now of interrupting the sacred proceedings.

‘Commanding officer!’ shouted Corporal Denny from the leader of the regimental chariot, not allowing the horses to halt and thereby acknowledge that the commanding officer of the 6th Light Dragoons, even an acting one, could be impeded at his own gates.

The sentry scuttled through the postern like a rat started by a terrier. Seconds later the big iron-clad doors swung open, dragoons heaving with all their strength.

‘Details, atte-e-enshun!’ bellowed the corporal for the inlying picket (the detailed men were not actually designated ‘picket’ until the picket officer had finished his inspection).

With scarcely checked speed, the chariot rolled through the gateway arch. Hervey acknowledged the salutes, the gate sentry with his carbine at the ‘present’, the picket officer, a mint-new cornet from his own squadron, and the orderly serjeant-major saluting with the hand, and the rest standing rigidly to attention.

Corporal Denny reined up outside regimental headquarters. The orderly dragoon, who had doubled from the guardhouse, pulled down the chariot’s folding step, and opened the door. It had been six days since Hervey had left for Horningsham (the bout of remittent fever had detained him two days longer than he had intended) and he wanted to see District Orders and the adjutant’s occurrence book before appearing at mess.

There was no one in the orderly room, but in his office were several letters. Three were in hands he recognized: Lord George Irvine’s, Kat’s, and that of his old friend Captain (sometime Commodore) Sir Laughton Peto. He hesitated before opening his colonel’s, for likely it contained the reply to his express asking leave to purchase the lieutenant-colonelcy. Not that he entertained the slightest doubt as to Lord George’s support. Nevertheless he laid it aside for the moment to deal instead with the four unrecognized hands. These, however, turned out to be matters of no great account, which could wait for the morning. Next he opened Kat’s. Before he had left for Wiltshire he had sent her a brief note saying he would be gone some days, but expected to return within the week.