Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage (44 page)

Lord George shook his head, but he smiled just perceptibly, too. ‘Hervey, I shan’t call you a damned fool, though others might. You may, of course, remain cornet in the regiment. And, I might add, I myself shall be pleased of it. You have scarce put a foot wrong since we came to the Peninsula.’

‘Thank you, Colonel.’

‘Very well, you may go. And you may tell Sir Edward that he may collect his champagne when next we are in proper quarters!’

Hervey returned the smile as he replaced his Tarleton, and saluted.

As he walked back to A Troop’s lines, the sun now low in the sky behind him, he gazed east. The men with bayonets had broken open the door to Spain (Lord George had said it). Now it would be a run to the French border. They might get a footing in France itself before the allies in the east could get across the Rhine. Might they even ride to Paris? He could not say how many miles that would be, but already they must have marched a thousand –
more
– since first they had come to the Peninsula with Sir John Moore. He knew full well, as Lord George had said, that some would call him a damned fool to turn down promotion – and in a regiment like the Royals. But how could he leave men with whom he had shared so much? Perhaps there would not be so much fighting with the bayonet now? But in that case there would be more work for the cavalry to do . . .

Hervey wondered what his troop-leader would say – Sir Edward and his ‘long point’. Perhaps, indeed, the point had not yet begun: perhaps they were only now going to bolt their fox, from his earth in Badajoz. Monsieur Reynard would then be running over country he knew well, and they would be hunting him with followers strung out all the way from Lisbon.

No matter which way he looked at it, Hervey was sure he had made the right decision. Three sieges it had cost the army to take this place, and now he could turn his back on it for ever and fix his gaze, albeit by his map still, on the Pyrenees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

UNHAPPY RETURNS

Reeves’s Hotel, Rua do Prior, Lisbon, 8 January 1827

Private Johnson put more wood on the fire, and shook his head. ‘I bet it won’t be any colder there, that’s all I can say.’

Hervey took less consolation in this dubious proposition than his groom might suppose. ‘Thank you, Johnson. I think, however, the prospect of England is not a warming one.’

‘Well I’m fed up wi’ this place. Tha d’n’t know ’ho to trust.’

‘I beg your pardon, Johnson, but one knows very well whom to trust.’

Johnson frowned. ‘Tha knows what I mean, sir.’

Hervey sighed. ‘Yes, I know what you mean.’

‘Will tha be gooin’ to see Mrs Delgado again?’

‘Yes,’ Hervey replied, warily. ‘But not for a day or so, I would imagine.’

‘I like Mrs Delgado.’

‘Yes, Johnson, so you have never failed to inform me.’

He had not minced words with his groom for years. Indeed, Johnson was less a soldier-servant, more
family
, of sorts. Hervey knew well enough what were Johnson’s thoughts: they were simple, probably too simple. But what
was
there to stop him riding to Belem and asking for Isabella’s hand? It was what he desired, was it not? There would be vexations, on account of Isabella’s religion no doubt, but they could be overcome. There was no woman he admired more – save his sister. And Isabella excited in him as much passion as any he had felt in . . . well, it was better that he make no comparison in that regard. Did he
love
her? He believed he did. Why was he not certain? Because a part of him – the part that loved in the way he had once known – had died in the snowy wastes of America along with Henrietta.

But what of Isabella herself ? What could be her feelings for him? They had not spoken on any terms of intimacy; she had given no sign. He was long past any diffidence that would inhibit a proposal on these grounds, but how might he love a woman – take a woman as his wife – who did not at heart share his regard or passion?

Or was that the adolescent’s, the romantic’s, notion – the very thing he had resolved to be done with? If there had been one profit in his caging in Badajoz it was (he flattered himself) an understanding of his condition. That, and a resolution to put unsatisfactory matters to rights. He had hoped to be spared any public discipline, yet he knew in truth that atonement without penance was not possible. Especially was this true where Colonel Norris was concerned. Perhaps he ought not to be too dismissive of Norris’s tiresome caution. Men had died, after all, in the course of his own designing.

‘An’ I don’t see why there should be all this trouble either.’ Johnson sounded quite decided.

‘There was only ever a possibility of avoiding trouble, as you call it, if things remained in Lisbon. I was lost as soon as the Horse Guards learned of it, let alone the War Office.’

‘Will Corporal Wainwright get in trouble?’

Hervey shook his head at the thought of his covering corporal on the bridge: the courage was one thing, the presence of mind quite another. ‘I cannot think even Colonel Norris could see anything but honour in what Wainwright did. I’m determined he shall have some reward.’

‘Ah wish ah’d seen it. Why didn’t ’e just jump wi’out ’is ’orse, though?’

Hervey shook his head again. ‘He said he thought he would be a burden without her!’

Johnson nodded, perfectly understanding. ‘An’ ’e’s still only a young’n!’

‘Indeed, Johnson.’ He started searching again among the paraphernalia of uniform piled ready for packing. ‘Where is my button-stick?’

‘But that doctor were brave an’ all.’

Hervey looked up. ‘You know, Johnson, it was fifteen years ago, the business at Badajoz. I could never have imagined what long shadows it cast. I didn’t tell you the other two daughters died of fever before the war was ended, and that his wife took her own life not long after. He might have been a broken man – or, at least, a very bitter one. Yet I never met a
kinder
man.’

‘Will ’e be in trouble, d’ye think, sir?’

Hervey shrugged. ‘He cannot very well return to Spain, at least for a while. Mr Forbes at the legation is taking good care of him. They spoke of some employment in the Americas. I shall see him again before we leave, I hope.’ He threw up his hands in frustration. ‘Where
is
that button-stick?’

Johnson laid down the bellows. ‘Why don’t tha let me do that, sir. Sit down and ’ave thi coffee while it’s ’ot.’

Hervey sighed. He had no need of the button-stick anyway, except to occupy his mind. He sat in the armchair by the smoking fire and poured out some of the thick black brew which Johnson had perfected over many years of improvisation with the most unpromising of raw materials, and then picked up the letter again. ‘I must tell you frankly, Johnson: the Duke of York is greatly angered. Lord John Howard tells me all in this, here.’

Johnson took up the poker again, and scowled. ‘Ay. But t’Duke’d never ’ave known if Colonel Norris ’adn’t told ’im.’

‘Except that the Spanish ambassador has probably also protested.’

Johnson stopped poking the fire, and turned with a look of uncharacteristic anxiety. ‘Sir, tha doesn’t think tha’ll be—’

‘What?’

‘Well, I don’t know rightly – whatever it is as ’appens to an officer.’

‘Cashiered?’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘Quite possibly. I imagine the Horse Guards would not go to the trouble of ordering a general court martial otherwise.’

‘An’ tha’s not worried?’

Hervey half laughed. ‘Johnson, in truth I’m so dismayed by how we seem to arrange things in the army that I hardly care
what
happens. I believe I may say that I would not do the same again, for I see all too clearly how things have become, but in all honesty I cannot regret what I did, for it was all I had learned in these eighteen years a soldier.’

‘Ay, well said, Major ’Ervey. An’ Gen’ral Clinton says ’e’ll speak for thee, doesn’t ’e?’

‘Oh yes, have no fear, Johnson. There’ll be testimonials enough. But if the Duke of York is as angered as Lord John says he is, it will be to no avail. He’s an old man, and a sick one too. His opinions are more decided by the day, and they are not favourable to junior officers who take things upon themselves, especially in the face of their seniors.’

‘All this is because of Colonel Norris.’

‘All this is because of
me
, Johnson. I cannot escape the responsibility.’

Johnson stood up and looked at the fire despairingly: no wood he could find in this place gave off any heat. ‘Very Christian that is, Major ’Ervey. Some consolation to thee, I suppose.’

Hervey scowled back.

‘An’ why ’asn’t tha been to see Mrs Delgado an’ ’er father?’

‘What has that to do with it? I told you anyway: I have been, and shall go again as soon as I am able. You forget, perhaps, I am in open arrest.’

‘Colonel Laming’s been to see ’er.’

‘I am glad to hear it. But I cannot call on her and her father before Colonel Norris gives me leave.’

‘Tha knows they might go to England? On account o’ t’trouble ’ere.’

Hervey looked surprised. ‘No, I did not. How did you come by this?’

‘Colonel Laming’s man.’

Hervey’s eyes widened. ‘I compliment you on your sources, I’m sure!’

‘Ay, ’e ’eard they’d be gooin’ by t’end o’t’month.’

‘Well, I have not seen Colonel Laming these last few days, I regret to say.’ Hervey sounded especially thoughtful. ‘He has important duties with General Clinton. He says he will come by tonight, all being well.’

But what came instead that night was a letter:

Head Quarters,
Valle de Pereira Barracks
8th January 1827

My dear Hervey
,

I am prevented by only the most urgent duty from calling on you this evening, for there are matters with which I would acquaint you in person, and so I am obliged to depose these matters here instead, and would beg your indulgence, confident that you of all men will know the urgent delicacy of what we are about. You will be pleased to learn, for every good reason, that Sir William Clinton is inclined to base his dispositions in the very largest measure upon your design, for he has learned from M. Saldanha the Minister of War that the Miguelites will next renew their offensive in Minho and Tras os Montes, but that M. Saldanha is confident of the Portuguese army so long as there are English troops not too distant who would thereby demonstrate to the Miguelites that whatever success they might enjoy in the provinces it would never take them to Lisbon. Half our army is therefore to march forthwith to the Mondego, and shall have its Head Quarters at Coimbra. The remainder shall occupy the Tagus forts with a view to securing the peace of the capital and to be in a position to reinforce the garrison at Elvas if that front should become active. The Spanish announce that they are to form an army of observation of fifteen thousand men in Estremadura, this to guard against advance from Portugal, which notion is of course entirely without justification, and it is the opinion of M. Saldanha that the true purpose is to check the Miguelites, which they protest they are now certain to do. In any case, there is to be no occupying the lines of Torres Vedras, save for a very few forts. Instead if the division on the Mondego is obliged to withdraw, or withdraws to shorten its lines of communication in the event of the Regent’s forces driving the Miguelites from Minho and Tras os Montes, it will occupy a line from Leiria to Santarem, much as you proposed, with an advance guard at Thomar. In almost every detail, therefore, Sir William has adopted your design, and he asks me to assure you that he is most conscious of it. I do believe this will mean an end to your animadversion, for he is sure to write in these terms to the Horse Guards
.

The second matter on which I write is one of some delicacy too, although a different kind. I have resolved to end my state of bachelorhood, and if Isabella Delgado returns a favourable reply to my offer of marriage then it will be ended sooner instead of later. I confess to you – and here, perhaps, I am able to confess more than I might were we to speak together – I confess that I have formed a most ardent affection for her. She is, without doubt, the most admirable woman of my entire acquaintance, and I pray that she will judge my circumstances to be to her favour. I go tomorrow to Belem, and you will wish me every good wish, for you, I know, hold her in the highest regard also. My one regret is that I did not press my suit all those years ago when first we made the acquaintance of the baron, but then circumstances were hardly to my favour, whereas now a colonel instead of a cornet asks his daughter’s hand
. . .

Hervey laid down the letter, his hand trembling. Favourable circumstances indeed! Lieutenant-colonel, with a colonel’s brevet – and more promotion to come, no doubt. What would Isabella’s reply be? What
should
it be, for her daughter had no father, and she no husband?

He sat down heavily in an armchair. What did
he
offer? Captain, a major’s brevet, and the prospect of a court martial that might end in cashiering. He did not even have the
right
to propose, let alone contest so favourable an offer as Laming’s – his friend of nigh on twenty years, the man who had risked everything to rescue him from Badajoz, and who even now was working for his deliverance from an injustice. It would be the basest thing, would it not?