Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (19 page)

‘I’m certainly disposed to thinking of it, especially if the alternative is to be more as last night.’

Peto looked disappointed. ‘I don’t believe you would refuse your regiment even for a brigade of Marines! … We can at least have a good claret?’

Hervey smiled. ‘I can see no reason why not; there is still your own honour to celebrate.’

Peto rose. ‘It gets me a table next to the window here, but that, I think, is the extent of its usefulness. But let us go and dine. I hear they douse the galley fire at nine.’

The house dinner room was full, the window wall lined with KCBs and some more senior honours. They took the last table, in a dark corner but convenient for confidential talk, which Hervey at least was pleased with. A waiter brought the list.

‘Great heavens,’ growled Peto, holding it to the light. ‘There’s more crossed out than in! One soup, is there no fish?’

‘’Fraid not, sir,’ said the waiter, matter of fact. ‘We’s been uncommon busy tonight, sir; on account of the—’

‘Not even oysters?’

‘I can ask M’seur Franswar, sir.’

‘And who is he?’ asked Peto, suspiciously.

‘He is the new French cook, sir. Came on Monday.’

‘I’d be obliged. Good and devilled, if he will.’ He looked at his friend. ‘Yours, Hervey?’

Hervey had been studying the list – not that the alternatives before him required great concentration, except that the excisions were of the French dishes that Monsieur Francois had evidently introduced that very week. ‘Well, there is nothing for it but the vermicelly soup, and then the oysters, if there are any, and then the snipe pie, I think: it was good the last time I had it.’

Peto frowned. ‘I think it must be extraordinarily old snipe. Oh, very well. I had hoped for something more choice, but…’

‘You may have a beefsteak, of course, sir, or a chop.’

Peto shook his head. ‘Have the wine steward come, if you will.’

‘There’s a very serviceable burgundy,’ tried Hervey.

‘I am pleased for it, but if your regimen tomorrow will permit, I should prefer we take something more robust.’

Hervey nodded. If his old friend wished to fortify himself in anticipation of their lordships’ laying him up, then he had no objection to claret.

‘Damnable business, beached like some dismasted man o’ war, and at two-score years. Damnable. I applied to Hardy, you know, when I heard he was for Portugal.’

Lord Nelson’s flag captain commanded the naval force which had accompanied the army to Lisbon. Hervey would rather not have been reminded, but he decided to make light of it. ‘It was one of my several regrets that I never met him there. I think you would have been well to have been with him, for they’re bound to see action. The Miguelites are pushing hard again, I read. He had no opening for you?’

‘No, though he said he’d remember me to Blackwood, who’s to have the Nore.’

The butler came with his list. Peto assumed command, taking it and holding it to the light as if intent on studying every word.

‘If you will permit me, sir…’

‘I’m always glad of advice from someone who knows his cellar,’ replied Peto, now turning through the hocks and the burgundies until he found what he was looking for. ‘Is Ho Bryan ready?’

‘Oh, yes indeed, sir, very fine. Lord Exmouth and Sir Philip Broke have just taken a second bottle over there.’ He indicated a table at the further end of the room.

Peto looked with suitable reverence, and closed the list. ‘I can’t want for better recommendation.’ ‘Very good, sir.’

‘Frigate men, Hervey,’ he said as the butler withdrew. ‘Swift and bold. None better!’

‘Broke of the
Shannon,
is that?’

‘Ay,’ replied Peto, maintaining his watch and making no bones about it. ‘I wonder what brings
them
up?’

‘Do they serve still?’

Peto turned back to his friend. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Though neither has an active command. Broke must be close to his flag: he’s been post-captain a long time. He was damnably wounded taking the
Chesapeake.
I wonder if that’s why he dines with Exmouth?’

Hervey knew how hard it must go with Peto, seeing a man promoted when he himself faced the Half-Pay List, albeit Broke was a captain older and much the senior.

The soup arrived, fortuitously, and a bottle, requiring Peto’s close attention.

He tried it, sucking the wine noisily across his tongue. ‘It is passable,’ he said gravely. ‘Though I would keep it another year. Open a second, if you will.’

When the waiter and the butler were gone, Peto gazed long again at Admiral the Viscount Exmouth and Captain Sir Philip Broke, as if they might reveal something of his own situation. Then frowning, intrigued, but with evident determination, he turned back to his old friend.

‘Imagine they are come with the sole intention of enjoying a good dinner,’ suggested Hervey, smiling.

Peto frowned even more. ‘I shall try.’ Then he resolved to hoist his spirits, and emptied his glass. ‘But you must tell me more of your prospects. How are your people?’

Hervey picked up a spoon and began stirring his soup. ‘They are very well, all.’

‘Your sister?’

‘Elizabeth especially.’

‘And Georgiana?’

‘Georgiana is very well. I intend she comes to live with me at Hounslow.’

Peto looked genuinely engaged by this news. ‘Indeed? That is very agreeable. And as it should be.’ He seemed then to hesitate. ‘And your sister shall come to live with you too?’

‘No,’ said Hervey, drawing out the word as if thinking it over. ‘Not for any length of time, to be exact. The truth is, Peto…’

‘Yes?’

He hesitated again. ‘The truth is … I intend marrying.’

His friend’s mouth fell open. ‘You have said nothing of this! Who?’

‘You do not know her. Lady Lankester, my late commanding officer’s widow.’

‘Great heavens!’ boomed Peto, turning a dozen heads in their direction. ‘A widow!’

Hervey winced. ‘My dear fellow, your discretion if you will! I have not yet proposed!’

‘Bah! A widow? She’ll not turn you down!’

‘She is of independent means.’

‘Of course she is. I’d never take you for a fool!’

Now Hervey frowned. ‘She has a child too, not yet one year.’

‘And evidently therefore of proper maternal sentiment.’

‘Just so.’

Peto looked long at his old friend. ‘Tell me, Hervey: you love this woman?’

‘Peto!’

‘Come, man: mayn’t we speak of these things?’

‘I … do not yet … that is to say I … have not yet had opportunity to form so deep an attachment.’

‘You
have met
the woman?’

‘Of course I’ve met her! We met in Calcutta after Sir Ivo Lankester was killed at Bhurtpore.’

‘And how many times since?’

Hervey shifted awkwardly in his chair. ‘Just the once. But—’

‘Well, if it’s a mother for Georgiana you’re looking for…’

‘Don’t be absurd, Peto; it’s not only that. She’s a fine woman, a handsome woman –
very
handsome, indeed.’

‘More handsome than Lady Katherine Greville?’

Hervey glanced anxiously at the ears still inclined in their direction. ‘What is Katherine Greville to do with it?’

‘You ask
me?
’

‘You know very well the circumstances.’

‘Indeed I do, as does, I suspect, half this dinner room, though they might not put face to the name.’

Hervey shifted even more awkwardly. ‘I do wish you would lower your voice.’

‘Well, I consider it a double occasion for celebration! You will be lieutenant-colonel, and with a rich and beautiful widow at your side. I envy you; I truly envy you.’

This latter was said in a tone of some fervour. And Hervey – for all that
both
occasions for congratulations were yet but aspiration – felt the true extent of his old friend’s melancholy.

* * *

Hervey had instructed the coachman to return to the United Service Club at eleven o’clock so that he could be back in Hounslow by one. Several times during the evening he had wondered if instead he might go to Holland Park; his letter to Kat of the day before said he would call as soon as he was able, uncertain as he was when that might be on account of being summoned to the aid of the civil power. There were matters about which he must speak with her.
One
matter, rather. It was insupportable that he should press his suit with Kezia Lankester while continuing to call at Holland Park. He must make a clean breast of things, and at once; certainly before travelling to Gloucestershire. That was what he could do this evening at Holland Park.

Except that it was late. Kat kept late hours, it was true. The trouble was … the affair of Waltham Abbey, the uncertainty of getting the regiment, the offer of command at the Cape, the manly dinner: there would inevitably be but one purpose in calling at Holland

Park…

He climbed into the chaise, not speaking. ‘Hounslow, Major Hervey?’ asked the coachman, holding open the door.

Hervey sighed. ‘Hounslow, Peter; quick as you can.’

THE SERPENT’S COILS

Gloucestershire, three days later

Sezincote was the strangest house that Hervey had ever seen. It resembled the Pavilion at Brighton, with its Moghul turrets and tracery, its dome and peacock-tail arches, and yet it was very evidently a gentleman’s house rather than a place of entertainment. The grounds called to mind the abundant gardens of the governor-general’s residence in Calcutta, with all manner of plants patently not native to the country. On the balustrades of an ornamental bridge over a stream that watered the ‘paradise garden’ were little statues of Brahmin bulls – Nandi, ‘the happy one’ – and at a remove from the house itself stood Sir Charles Cockerell’s bedroom, an octagon fashioned like a rajah’s tent, tall poles supporting a canopy, and arch-windows, and a
chattri
– a minaret – in the centre. All was of local stone, but dyed yellow in the fashion of the native houses of Rajasthan. Yet within was as classical as any of the fashionable houses of not-so-distant Bath – ‘Greek revival’, as Somervile tersely dismissed it. Twenty years before Hervey had first set foot on the Madras beach (Somervile told him) Colonel John Cockerell, the present owner’s brother, had returned from Bengal and bought the house from the Earl of Guildford to be near his friend Warren Hastings. On his death the house had passed to his youngest brother, who had been with him in Bengal, first as an official of the Company, later as a founder of the most successful of the Calcutta agency houses established to handle the affairs of Englishmen in India. Now Charles Cockerell was
Sir
Charles, denizen of Messrs Paxton, Cockerell and Trail of Austin Friars in the City – and member of parliament for Evesham.

‘Wellington’s brother got him the baronetcy,’ explained Somervile, not entirely unkindly, as a footman unpacked Hervey’s valises. ‘I am very glad you could come. Cockerell’s is not a bad ear to have.’

‘Was it he who had the house Indianized, or his brother?’

‘It was he. Another brother was the architect, with the Daniells. And Repton, I think, did the garden.’

‘I liked it very much, after first overcoming my surprise.’

‘The King visited, when he was Prince of Wales, which is why he decided on his pleasure dome in Brighton, apparently.’

‘Indeed?’ said Hervey, staring rather absently from a window towards the formal water gardens. ‘I look forward to taking a good turn about the grounds tomorrow.’ He turned sharply, as if steeling himself. ‘What is the order for this evening?’

‘A
small
party, I understand. Last night was rather a formal, parliamentary business, though not disagreeable. Your affair of the gunpowder was all the talk. I wish I had known it
was
your affair. You must tell me all of it later. I was vastly diverted by the notion of Westminster’s being blown to the skies.’

Hervey looked at him, with a frowning challenge.

‘Diverted by the thought that so many could imagine it possible. But we’re in Tory country now, to be sure. As well not try saying “Catholic”, Hervey. “Papist” is preferred among the gentry. They would have feted you last night, had they known.’

Hervey shrugged. ‘That is as well. I should be loath to disabuse them and mistreat Sir Charles’s hospitality.’

Somervile smiled conspiratorially. ‘Oh, and I should say: there’s music again, but Lady C has dismissed the band which entertained us so agreeably last night, and the party’s to provide it instead. You’ll not be expected to perform, though; not on your first night here. Emma and I have something, and your Lady Lankester.’

Hervey frowned again. ‘Somervile, she is not
my
Lady Lankester.’

‘Ah, then you have had second thoughts?’

‘Not at all, only that it’s a presumption to speak that way. I rather think I should not have said anything now. It was ungallant.’

Somervile threw an orange at him hard. ‘Oh, perfect knight!’

Hervey fumbled the catch.

‘Hands not what they were, Major Hervey?’

‘They are quite safe, I assure you.’