A Close Run Thing (23 page)

But for sheep beyond the cursus, and the footmen, the four were quite alone. Sitting in the middle of the stone circle after their luncheon, even with so much Longleat finery, it was not difficult perhaps to imagine these Druids, especially since John Keble seemed to know so much about their religion, its rites and ritual. Elizabeth and Henrietta wished to view the circle from one of the tumuli, leaving Hervey and Keble to the Druids and a last glass of Madeira. When they were gone, John Keble interrupted his own speculation on the nature of primeval belief to ask Hervey so direct a question that the latter was all but stunned. ‘Mr Hervey,’ he began, fixing him with a benignant expression that belied his junior years, ‘you are, I perceive, much troubled by your affections for Lady Henrietta. Are you uncertain of them, by some chance?’

Hervey made not a sound.

‘Permit me, my friend, but is it – as I suspect – that you are not able sufficiently to discern what is love and what is merely admiration? Do not misunderstand me, mind, for there is infinitely much that a man might admire in Lady Henrietta – and love might follow as a consequence. Yet, it seems to me, after so many brutal years in Spain one might be inclined to be enamoured of something merely because it stands in such contrast to the brutish.’

Hervey smiled thinly. ‘You have said “merely” twice, sir; I wish it were indeed thus!’

John Keble smiled, too, but warmly.

‘Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heaven such grace did lend her,

That she might admirèd be.’

Hervey threw his head back, smiling broadly:

‘Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness.

Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness …’

‘Bravo, Mr Hervey! We are two gentlemen indeed, if not actually of Verona. But permit me to make one more observation on the matter of searching for perfection – and a profound one, I trust. At the beginning of the gospel which bears your name, the apostle sees
fit
to place the genealogy of our Saviour, and in it are the names of four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.’ Hervey studied him intently as John Keble’s expression turned to one of even greater warmth. ‘Tamar’s sins we both know of, as indeed we do Rahab’s; Ruth was an alien, and Bathsheba was both adulteress and conniver to murder. Yet these women are of our Lord’s family. I commit this to your reflection, Mr Hervey.’

Never before had Hervey considered the passage in more than the driest genealogical terms, but before he was able to reflect, or even to make some interim acknowledgement to this man whose charity now seemed as great as his incisiveness, the contemplative peace of the stone circle was broken by the return of his sister and Henrietta.

‘Mr Keble,’ began Elizabeth, ‘my companion is tired of the sun. Would you hold my parasol while I sketch the stones?’

John Keble agreed readily.

After they were gone, and after an even longer silence, Henrietta asked: ‘Is it not perfectly horrid to imagine human sacrifice in this very place?’

‘It is;
horrid
,’ Hervey agreed, somewhat abstractedly.

‘But, if there were sacrifices, there must surely have been weddings here, too!’ she added brightly. ‘Do you not think it a perfectly wonderful idea to be wedded in such a place, the stones draped with mistletoe perhaps?’

Hervey was startled. ‘I … I had not thought of it,’ was all he could manage by reply.

‘
What?
Had not thought of marriage, or not of such a thing in this place? Surely you do not lack heart?’

The mocking again – why
did
she taunt him so? He said what first came into his head (and cursed himself as he did so): ‘Are you thinking of such a place for marriage with Mr Styles?’

‘Matthew,’ she began quietly, ‘how could you possibly have supposed that I should wish to marry Hugo Styles?’

He struggled for some explanation. ‘Well, I … that is,’ he stammered. ‘That day in the park when you read from your novel – you seemed to be suggesting—’

‘Suggesting what?’ she continued softly.

‘You seemed to be suggesting that a yeomanry officer was irresistible – something about regimentals, and the ladies of the district or whatever. I took it to mean that you referred in particular to Styles. He has a very handsome income at least, has he not?’

‘Matthew,’ she said with a smile, taking no apparent offence at his actuarial recommendation, ‘have you since read
Pride and Prejudice
?’

‘No, I—’

‘Well, go and do so!’ she laughed. ‘At least, read that passage carefully when they are all at Meryton, the one I read aloud that day – chapter six or seven, I think it is!’

More
riddles. Why? How was he to discover her meaning? Was it merely that a spoiled existence was to be relieved by dallying? Or was this sumptuousness around them another kind of riddle, a sign of the gulf
between
them perhaps? However close their childhood in that schoolroom, and however close Henrietta’s friendship with Elizabeth, perhaps that gulf were so wide as to be a chasm, unbridgeable. It was a wretched, hopeless conclusion, and he lapsed into unhappy silence.

As if then, at some unheard trumpet-call, Serjeant Armstrong, who had so far dutifully stood aloof (indeed, unseen – on the instructions of the lady’s maid), now appeared from between two of the sarsens. And never had Hervey been so pleased by his appearing, for it reminded him of the promise of their return to the regiment, and the promise of—What? Relief from the necessity of confronting these other …
intrusions
?

Henrietta seemed equally delighted. ‘Serjeant!’ she called, ‘come here and give us your opinion.’

In God’s name
, thought Hervey, was he now to be humiliated by having his serjeant drawn into this? He made to protest, but—

‘Serjeant, we have been discussing these stones. Could they have had some military purpose, do you think?’ asked Henrietta.

Relief coursed through him.

‘I couldn’t honestly say, miss,’ began Armstrong, ‘but a circle’s a powerful defensive position, for sure.’

‘Could you imagine that the circle was used for sacrificing maidens to pagan gods?’ she asked, smiling coyly.

And, with the sure
coup d’œil
that had so evidently deserted Hervey, Armstrong smiled, too, pausing only
for
an instant: ‘Not if they were as bonny as you, miss!’

Hervey was dumbstruck as Henrietta shrieked with laughter.

Three days later Elizabeth made the shortest entry in her journal in many months:

August 28th, St Augustine’s Day

Today Matthew and his serjeant left for Ireland, and the house is once again silent. Matthew is grown to manhood yet somehow there is an innocence about him which, though endearing, is cause enough for concern. His serjeant is a fine man, however, and devoted to him, and I think no ill should become him while he has such a man to serve with. Of any expectation that we had of Matthew and Henrietta we must no longer speak, for he showed not a moment’s feeling for her, or, rather, no ability to convey any feeling if feeling there were – though hers for him was plain to see.

VIII

THE LESSON OF HISTORY

The Cove of Cork, 3 September

‘HAVE YOU
EVER
seen the like of it?’ thrilled Hervey, so taken by the prospect of Cork’s great sheltered bay as to be oblivious to all else. ‘Anything so …
inspiring
as those headlands, and the sheer
size
of the anchorage?’

Serjeant Armstrong leaned over the weather rail and retched loudly again. ‘For God’s sake, Mr ’Ervey, never ’ave I known ought like this crossing. Even Biscay after Corunna was no match for it. I’ve been throwing up me accounts ’alf the night.’ And he leaned over the side again and retched even louder.

Strong south-westerlies had made St George’s Channel no place for a soldier in whom the gentlest of swells invariably induced nausea. The Bristol merchantman which regularly plied this route – no longer in convoy now peace was returned – had hove to for a night in Carmarthen Bay rather than risk entering the channel with St Gowan’s Head on a lee shore. However, by this, their fourth morning, the
winds
had backed and moderated to no more than a fresh breeze which now took them effortlessly into the great harbour at Cork. Three men-o’-war – a first-rate and two frigates – lay at anchor under the sentinel of the gun batteries on the headlands, in scale no more than daisies on the lawn at Horningsham. And the land itself, distant though it still was, looked as green as legend had it.

‘Do you know what day it is, Serjeant Armstrong?’

‘If you said Judgement Day, I’d believe you,’ he replied, still clutching the rail for all he was worth, though there was but the merest swell now.

‘It is the anniversary of the battle of Worcester.’

‘Is that right, sir?’ Armstrong sighed. ‘And what might that ’ave been about?’

‘The Civil War – you must surely know of the battle of Worcester? After Worcester the king was a fugitive, and his officers, too. I was thinking of Captain Thomas Hervey: he came here, to Cork, after the battle.’

‘And what then?’

‘He lived peaceably in Dublin, so I understand, until the plague carried him off. He had been a cavalryman, with Prince Rupert.’

‘That’s right cheering, Mr Hervey,’ said Armstrong, a little colour at last returning to his face.

Hervey continued to peer at the distant hills through the small telescope he had purchased from a French artillery officer captured at Salamanca. ‘Did you have any family in that war, Serjeant Armstrong?’ he asked,
seeming
not to notice, still, Armstrong’s indifference to conversation.

‘I ’ave no more idea than Adam,’ he replied. ‘I ’eard tell my grandfather was a collier, but further back than ’im I ’aven’t a notion. My father’s younger brother were a tar, died of fever in the Indies – that’s all the service I know of.’

Hervey closed his telescope and looked at his serjeant standing squarely and very much the better for the sheltered waters of the Cove. ‘I beg your pardon: I did not mean any show by it. It seemed uncommon chance that we should be sailing into Cork on this day, that is all.’

‘No offence taken, as usual, sir.’

‘I wonder how living in barracks shall suit us,’ Hervey continued, but changing tack.

‘A novelty sure enough. It might suit the Guards and Marines, but I think I should prefer the old way,’ Armstrong replied with a shrug.

‘Doubtless the Horse Guards would, too,’ agreed Hervey, ‘but billeting in Ireland is an altogether different matter. It is one thing to discompose a few English farmers and innkeepers, quite another to foist troops on a sullen population. No, there have been barracks here, and fortified too, since Cromwell. We shall have to take their measure.’

So large was the anchorage that it took a full hour to see them berthed, and it was a further hour before they reached the Royal Barracks. Armstrong was first to remark on their size, larger, as they were, than even
the
Guards’ in St James’s. Built not ten years before, there was space for over one hundred and fifty officers and two thousand men. On this day they were half-empty, however, only a small rear-party from the Sixth occupying the cavalry quarters. The rest of the regiment, explained the quartermaster in charge of rear details, had sailed to Dublin a fortnight earlier for a review. It was no use Hervey’s trying to join them, he insisted, since they were expected back within the week.

Hervey might have been glad of some breakfast, but the regiment’s mess was closed, and although he could have messed with the Fusiliers, the other occupants of the barracks, he felt disinclined to be too sociable at such an hour. Instead he went to the stables to see Coates’s bay brought in from the harbour by one of the ostlers. Armstrong had already been collared for duty by the rear-details serjeant-major.

‘’Ey up, sir!’ called a voice from the hayloft as he entered the otherwise deserted stables. Johnson clambered down the ladder to cast an eye over the new charger. ‘He looks a good ’un, but tha won’t be able to call ’im Brandywine, he said, looking at the name-plate on the headstall.

‘Why not?’

‘Because t’adjutant’s just bought one an’ called ’im that. Tha should know ’e were at t’battle o’ Brandywine ’imself!’

Hervey sighed. Johnson had brought him rudely back to the trying niceties of regimental life. ‘Very well, then –
you
choose.’

Johnson did not hesitate. ‘’
Arkaway
.’

‘You reckon he may be a Derby runner?’ laughed Hervey. ‘Well, why not? Harkaway it is, then. What is the news otherwise?’

Johnson was always abreast of the news, be it from the orderly room or from the canteen. ‘Quartermaster Hill has died of an ague,’ he began.

‘Oh,’ said Hervey, ‘I am right sorry – a good man and an honest quartermaster.’

‘Ay, t’canteen raised a fair sum for ’is widow. There’s a new vetinry an’ all.’

‘How so? Has Mr Selden retired at last?’

‘No – ’e was caught in fleegranty,’ replied Johnson breezily, as he got to work with the curry-comb.