Hervey 10 - Warrior (10 page)

Another brandy and soda settled him somewhat, but it required a considerable act of will to rouse and make to leave. He really could not in all decency stay a second night at the United Service; especially when he had sent no communication to Kezia to say even that he might return late to Hanover Square.

He went out into the hall and asked the porter to hail him a cab.

Alone, now, he had the sudden and profoundest desire to speak to someone. But who? Fairbrother? Fairbrother was the only one of his military companions that he could possibly conceive of speaking to. And it was strange, because Fairbrother was not as the others: he neither wore the 'VI' on his shako plate, nor was he even an Englishman. Not in the usual sense. For much of the time Hervey had no notion that Fairbrother was any different in birth or upbringing from any in the Sixth, for his manners were entirely those of the gentleman, his speech likewise, with but the faintest accent of the plantation. Nor was the colour of his skin so markedly different, especially in the summer months, when the sun in Spain and India had made of the Sixth a fraternity of half-castes.

But he could not speak to Fairbrother, for even had his friend been at hand, these were waters too deep. The Reverend Mr Keble, perhaps, would have given steadfast counsel, but could he face such a man as John Keble? Would that admirable, saintly curate truly be able to understand his situation? Elizabeth should have been his confidante, but although his sister had for so many years been his support (without her, indeed, he did not know what would have become of him after Henrietta had died), he had never spoken his innermost thoughts. And now that there was this . . . estrangement between the two of them, any such course was out of the question. He was not certain, even, if she were in London or in Wiltshire (this improvident engagement with her German widower had made her lose all sense of judgement).

One person only did he imagine might help him: Sister Maria. For a few short weeks in 1814 they had been intimate in the easy manner of their conversation, touching on things spiritual that were never the subject of discourse with any other of his acquaintance. It had been helped no little by her calling, the otherworldliness of her habit. And yet, though she had not worn the habit that morning (the law forbade it in public), he was certain that if she were here now he would be able to tell her all.

He sighed, giving way for the moment to the greatest sense of hopelessness.Which would occasion the greater alarm at two in the morning: pulling on the doorbell at the Hammersmith Convent, or at Kezia's aunt's in Hanover Square?

He woke to the sound of piano scales. He looked at his watch; it was not yet seven. He sat up and looked about: a good-size room, with fine hangings and paintings; he had not taken it in by the light of the candle when the manservant had brought him to it in the early hours (he hoped he had not woken too many of the household, for there had been a noisy drawing of bolts). He rose and poured water from the decanter by his bed into a washing bowl, supposing it a little early for hot water to be brought, even though there was piano practice. He shaved, then dressed.

He went downstairs to the music room. Kezia was now begun on her arpeggios. He bent and kissed her forehead. 'Good morning, my love,' he said boldly.

'Good morning,' she replied, without interruption to her practice. 'Evidently priests are not easy to find these days in London.'

He smiled. 'I'm sorry. I was detained by all manner of things yesterday. And some I must speak with you about as a matter of urgency. I saw Lord Hill, and he has proposed I go to the seat of the Turkish war for six months – not immediately, but in the new year. And Eyre Somervile wants me to return forthwith to the Cape. And I have been offered command of the Eighty-first.'

Kezia continued playing, if perhaps less complex chords. 'On what particular do you seek my attention?'

Hervey's brow furrowed. 'On all of them! We might begin with the Turkish war.'

She threw him an indulgent smile. 'I am perfectly aware that the wife of a soldier must bear such absences.'

'And the early return to the Cape?'

'I cannot think but that the lieutenant-governor has good reason.'

Hervey was finding the easy acceptance a shade disconcerting. 'And the Eighty-first?'

She smiled indulgently again. 'I cannot know the reputation of every regiment of the army. Where are they stationed?'

'Canada.'

'
Canada?
' She mis-keyed, and looked vexed with herself. 'I cannot be expected to go with you to Canada!'

His mouth fell open. If she had gone to India with her late husband, what possible objection could there be to Canada?

'Are you inclined to accept the command?' she asked, taking up the exercises again, speaking in an indifferent manner, not that of wife to husband.

He put a hand to her shoulder. 'I am not strongly minded to, no; and your disapproval reinforces me in that position.'

She stopped playing, momentarily. 'I thank you for consulting me in the matter.'

'The fact is, my love, I may not get a better offer. It is without purchase too. Lord Hol'ness shows no sign of selling out, and when he does, the price may be too high. John Howard told me the Seventeenth went for twenty-five thousand!'

'To whom? Who would pay such a sum just to sit in front of five hundred other men on horses?'

Hervey was rather put out by this dismissal of the honour of command, even though he supposed she spoke with irony. 'Lord Bingham.'

'Oh, then that explains it. George Bingham will merely rack-rent his miserable tenants in Mayo all the more.'

Hervey frowned again. 'I don't know George Bingham in that particular – or, indeed, any – except that he is to go to the Russians meanwhile. Lord Hill wishes me to take his place when he goes to his regiment.'

Kezia increased the dynamics of her exercises as if to underscore her disapproval. 'I know George Bingham perfectly well enough. He is not a cultivated man.'

Hervey could not see the relevance of what he had no reason to doubt was a perfectly apt judgement of Lord Bingham's character to the price of the Seventeenth; but he was intrigued that his wife should claim an acquaintance with their new commanding officer. 'How old would you say he was exactly?'

'He is my age, perhaps a little more. He attended the balls in the year I was out.'

Hervey cursed silently for being inclined to dislike a man he had never met. He had no knowledge of Bingham save that he was too young to have seen service in the French war, and to his almost certain knowledge had not been to India. 'But the Cape, my love: we must needs take passage by the month's end.'

Kezia stopped playing, her hands poised above the keyboard, her face all astonishment. '
We?
Matthew, I cannot possibly go by the month's end. You know I am to play at the benefit concerts. It is quite impossible!'

Hervey was likewise dismayed. 'But I cannot leave you here. I cannot return to the Cape without my wife!'

Kezia laid her hands in her lap, and turned her head to him with a pleasant countenance despite the evident disagreeability of the subject. 'Matthew, you yourself have said that Eyre Somervile wishes you to return forthwith. Manifestly he has urgent need of you, and I do not suppose that he has need of you at his office, do you? I have no desire to sit at Cape-town while you and he hunt tiger or whatever it is that you do. And then Lord Hill wishes you to go to the Turks or the Russians, so we would not be at the Cape for more than six months, in which case, where is the sense in my undertaking two voyages and enduring the intervening months of separation? And would you wish it, too, for your daughter and for mine?'

Hervey pulled a chair nearer to the piano and sat down, taking her hand. 'But we should be making those voyages together, and the work that Somervile has in mind would not, I'm sure, take me from Cape-town for all the months in between. Besides, if I am to replace Bingham in the Levant I shall be gone a further six months or more, and it will scarcely be possible for you to accompany me then.'

Kezia withdrew her hand. 'Matthew, all that matters not, for as I have said already, I am beholden to my aunt.'

Hervey shook his head in disbelief.

'Matthew, you of all people must know the calls of duty.'

He was about to say 'yes, but duty of
substance
' when he thought better of it. Perhaps it was expedient to leave the matter, for the moment. It was early, they had not breakfasted, and he had interrupted her practice.

V
A HUNT

Hounslow, afternoon, the same day

Hervey gathered up the reins as the commanding officer came on parade. He turned in the little finger of his right hand as far as he could and saluted, hoping that Lord Holderness would not notice that the seam of his glove had unaccountably split. In the scheme of things it was not perhaps of the greatest moment: a broken stitch even on a piece of saddlery was not unknown, but it suggested less than the sharpest eye for maintenance. And Hervey knew his eye had been elsewhere than on such things these past weeks (neither had Johnson been given opportunity for the usual making and mending). But if Lord Holderness noticed, he did not show it. He returned the salute cheerily, without greeting (they had taken lunch together in the mess), and Hervey closed to his side, his borrowed mare whickering her own salutation to the colonel's charger.

It was an unexpected as well as a pleasant diversion. He had gone to Hounslow in the morning to place the details of Caithlin Armstrong's funeral in the hands of the adjutant, and Lord Holderness had asked him to ride out with him in the afternoon. 'I hope you will both be able to dine with us at Heston before you sail,' he said as they passed the sentries presenting arms at the barrack gates (he and Lady Holderness had taken the lease on Heston House, a mile or so away).

'A pleasure, Colonel,' replied Hervey, adding with something of a smile, 'though persuading Kezia to leave her pianoforte is not easy at present. She has several benefit concerts.' He could not help thinking how eagerly Kat would have accepted.

Lord Holderness nodded, and smiled indulgently. 'A prodigious talent, I understand.'

They rode on in silence, accompanied by a trumpeter, an orderly and the picket officer, who had all reined in, respectfully, to allow the colonel and the senior major to converse in private.

The sun shone, but it was not too hot a day. Blackbirds were still singing – mellow, fluting song despite the hour; swifts in great numbers screamed this way and that; and, high above, a red kite circled effortlessly. Hervey watched as suddenly a crow flew up at it. A nest to guard, perhaps? But he had only ever observed a kite pick at carrion; he did not think it hunted like the hawk or the buzzard. Did the crow not know one bird from another? Or did it suppose that the kite might forget itself? He recalled the service of the vultures at the Cape, how Fairbrother had detected the movement of the Zulu by observing their flight. How he missed Fairbrother's easy company now. He wondered how he was enjoying Devon, and the relicts of his family there.

Lord Holderness shifted his left leg forward and began tightening the girth on his hunting saddle. 'Now, we have made no mention of it – the Eighty-first. What is your inclination?'

Hervey tried to keep one eye on the kite, which evaded its impertinent assailant by leisurely flexions of its deep-forked tail. He had, of course, intended telling Lord Holderness of the offer of the Eighty-first, this afternoon possibly, for he had not supposed he knew of it.

Lord Holderness sensed his discomfiture. 'I should add that I believe I alone know of it in the regiment. It was given to me upon most particular honour.'

'Of course, Colonel. Thank you.'

Lord Holderness had, in fact, made personal representation to the commander-in-chief, further to a letter he had sent to the general officer commanding the London District after the manoeuvres at Windsor. But he would never speak of it. If Hervey were promoted, he did not wish it to be thought of as being other than through merit recognized in the usual way. 'You will, I imagine, be disappointed that it is a regiment of Foot.'

Hervey held up his reins, as if to say 'see what my hands are accustomed to', and smiled.

Lord Holderness acknowledged with a sigh. 'A perfectly ridiculous supposition that it could be otherwise,' he added, his smile the equal of Hervey's.

'In truth, Colonel, I don't know what to think. I have not had opportunity to tell you, either, that last night Lord Hill asked if I would go to the Russians for a few months, when Lord Bingham returns.'

'Did he? By then, of course, I should be quite used to having no major!'

Now Hervey sighed. 'I know, Colonel. It is most unsatisfactory. I must declare my intentions soon, for all our sakes.'

'Oh, worry not on my account, Hervey. Malet's a good adjutant.'

Hervey nodded. 'But all the same . . .'

They came to the London Road. Ordinarily there was no check to their crossing, but this afternoon they had to take a good hold.