Hervey 09 - Man Of War (17 page)

He turned to his lieutenant. ‘Well, Mr Lambe, let us see how things stand below.’

VII
REFORM

27 April 1828

They took the mail back to London, four days after coming down. Without the urgency of a family summons Hervey could not justify to himself the expense of posting. It had the advantage, too, of limiting conversation, for in truth he felt a mite wearied by the business in Horningsham, the last day especially, when Elizabeth’s defiance drove a wedge between them; and, he feared, between him and Georgiana.

He even felt its thin end edging between him and Fairbrother, for in the afternoon he and his friend had walked to Longleat, and Fairbrother had practised a deal of advocacy on Elizabeth’s behalf. Hervey had tried to explain that however good a man was this Major Heinrici, he could be nothing compared with Peto. Fairbrother suggested that they go and meet him; indeed, he proposed that it was in honour the very least that Hervey could do if he were acting as paterfamilias. But Hervey had scorned the notion, suggesting it might then become an affair of pistols. To this Fairbrother had expressed himself perplexed by the ways of the English, and had fallen silent on the matter, although at dinner that evening he went out of his way to cheer Elizabeth. Not that she appeared much in need of cheering (cool certainty, Fairbrother thought it; shamelessness was Hervey’s opinion).

Hervey was inclined to ascribe his friend’s solicitousness to the natural good manners of a guest, rather than believing he truly took her side. Nevertheless, he had not wished to spend a day in a post chaise in conversation upon the topic (which seemed inevitable if they had been placed in each other’s exclusive company), and so the mail had served him well in terms of both economy and retreat.

What had saddened him most, besides the business itself, was Georgiana’s opinion. Perhaps he ought to have known that she would side instinctively with Elizabeth, who had stood
in loco matris
for so long; at ten years she could hardly be expected to make any informed judgement of her own in these matters. Except that he had rather hoped she might. Was it really so very difficult to see? If his mother and he saw with perfect clarity, then why not Georgiana? He was angry that Elizabeth had taken her to meet this Heinrici in the first place: it was, to say the least, indelicate – disloyal, indeed. But he wondered, too, if there were not some other consideration – if Georgiana’s attitude were not somehow connected with a reluctance to leave Horningsham for a new home. After all, he had not been able to tell her where that might be: Hounslow, he imagined, if he were to return to his regiment, or the Cape if he were not; perhaps, and worst of all, for even he saw that it might be uncomfortably alien, to Hertfordshire until the question was settled.

No, he must not allow that, Hertfordshire. Not, at least, without his company. It was time to follow the drum, though it had been Henrietta’s determination to do so that had led to her death (but could they in truth have lived any other way?). Besides, had not Kezia Lankester gone to India with her new husband, when most wives did not? Was that not a sure sign of her true and doughty nature? Kezia Hervey would not be content to sit in Hertfordshire, or even Hounslow, while her husband sailed abroad. Of that he was certain.

It was after nine when they got to the United Service Club, and the dining room had closed. There was no water for a hot bath (how Hervey was looking forward to the move to the new club house: he had become quite used to ready hot water in India), and so while bowls were got up for their rooms, the two friends sank into the leather tubs of the smoking room with brandy and soda. The porter brought Hervey his letters. One bore the stamp of the commander-in-chief ’s headquarters. He opened it at once.

The Horse Guards
23rd April

My dear Hervey,

I send you the briefest word to say that I have just seen the casualty lists for the battle at Navarin and may assure you that Captain Sir Laughton Peto’s name is not contained therein. You will be saddened to know that Captain Bathurst of the
Genoa
was killed, for I believe you said you met him once, as well as several captains of Marines, which Service seems to have borne the most considerable losses, ten of them on the
Genoa
alone. I confess I had not perhaps given the affair the greatest attention before, for I saw the official returns only in the New Year, by which time other matters were pressing. I may direct your attention to a full account of the battle, by Codrington’s own hand (whose own son, a midshipman on the flagship, was most grievously wounded), in the London Gazette Extraordinary of November 10, last, which, if not to be found in the United Service Club, you are at liberty to read here when you will.

I hope this allays your very evident, and proper, apprehension on account of your friend.

Believe me &c,
Howard

Hervey sighed with deep satisfaction: allay his apprehension it most certainly did. He held up the letter as if it were material evidence in the case of Peto vs Heinrici. ‘It is from John Howard. He confirms that Peto was unharmed in the affair at Navarino.’

‘
Deo gratias
,’ said Fairbrother, and looking as if he meant it (a jilted,
wounded
hero would have been too much for any of them to deal with).

‘I must write to Elizabeth, express, tomorrow.’

‘That it may bring her to her senses?’ he asked, in a tone that suggested irony.

Hervey looked at his friend suspiciously. ‘That she may know her affianced is well.’

Now Fairbrother sighed, and took a long measure of his brandy-soda. ‘My dear friend, I do not even apologize for pressing this. We are by accident or otherwise close companions; but I counsel the greatest caution in all this. I know what I believe, though I cannot be certain: no woman of your sister’s sensibility would do as she does without the utmost conviction. If you persist in . . . frankly,
hectoring
her, you risk both reinforcing her will and driving her from you.’

Hervey was tired. He had not slept much these past days, and his mind had been wholly active during the journey up. He was in no mood for dispute, even if he had had the inclination. He too took a long measure of his brandy-soda. ‘Fairbrother, I confess that in Horningsham I wished you were not there; and now I’m only thankful you were. If there is some strange female madness in this, or wilfulness, the last thing I wish is that I make matters worse. If you believe that I serve my purpose better by caution, then so be it. I confess I am at a loss to know how to bring Elizabeth to her senses, only that I must.’ He drained his glass, placed it on the wine table between their tubs, and stood. ‘Come; let us go and find a chop house.’

Fairbrother finished his glass and rose without a word. He must be content enough that he had achieved his immediate object, even if his friend entirely mistook his purpose.

Next day, Hervey took Fairbrother to watch the changing of the guard, before going to see Lord John Howard. He felt most particularly well. The remittent fever, the last bout of which had laid him so low at the Cape, was now wholly expelled, and he had back his colour and constitution in full measure. And the
iklwa
wound to his leg was but a neat scar. He felt ready for the saddle again, and watching the Life Guards only increased that certainty.

The business of Elizabeth occupied him, but by no means exclusively. On the drive back to London the matter of the court of inquiry had returned once more to the forefront of his mind. He knew that he ought by rights to be dealing with the matter by first applying to the Sixth’s orderly room, and they in turn to the headquarters of the London District, but the disadvantages of following the ‘chain of command’ were all too obvious. Besides, who with a friend at court – the commander-in-chief ’s headquarters – would apply, so to speak, at the palace’s back door? He was, indeed, almost shameless in this now. Where once he would have thought it beneath the dignity of a regimental officer to concern himself with anything but the regiment, he now knew otherwise: an officer must keep himself as much posted of affairs in Whitehall, in both military headquarters and civil ministries, as of events in the field. He despised the necessity, of course; but it did not follow that he must despise himself in the exercise of that necessity. Why should he leave the race open to lesser men who would not balk at chicanery? Even the Duke of Wellington had not risen by merit alone.

And with each chicane he found the business a little easier. Sometimes he did not at first recognize what he did. He wondered, indeed, if there were occasions when he did not
later
recognize it. And it troubled him. While he had been a prisoner in Badajoz – not eighteen months past – he had resolved to lead a new life, as the Prayer Book had it. His coming marriage had sprung from that very resolution. But soon the muddy business of the army in peacetime (what other way was there to describe the business of obtaining command?), and, he had to admit, his own weakness of will, had recalled him to the ways he had forsworn. It did indeed trouble him. But he took comfort in knowing in what cause it was: he wished only for a peaceful and settled state of matrimony, as once he had enjoyed (albeit briefly, and not without tempest, although passionate to a degree which the recollection of could discomfit him still). He wished above all for a proper and settled state of family for Georgiana. And he wished, and confided that the wish were not inimical to that cause, for command of the Sixth.

This latter he was never more sure of than now. The time at the Cape Colony with his troop, and with a half-colonel’s brevet and command of the Cape Mounted Rifles, had convinced him that only the lieutenant-colonelcy of his own regiment, the regiment he had joined as a seventeen-year-old cornet and which had become his true family, could satisfy what it was inside him that remained after the death of Henrietta. It defied logic: he would be full colonel today if only he had accepted other offers (he chided himself for false modesty: he might be major general). It was not logic but something visceral. It began at Corunna, when the Sixth had stayed together and come through it together, where others had fallen apart.
And
in the years of Peninsular endurance that followed – the long, wearying years through Portugal and Spain, siege after siege, battle after battle: so many comradely friendships forged, so many of those friends lost. And Waterloo, battle of battles, a day like no other, longer than any he could recall, where he had watched a serjeant go knowingly to his death so that he, Hervey, might escape to do his duty, and the good name of the Sixth be burnished ever the brighter. And the Armstrongs and the Collinses, the Wainwrights and the Johnsons, and the countless others – faithful witnesses, all; how could he rest as long as there was the possibility of holding the reins of His Majesty’s 6th Light Dragoons?

He had sent a note in advance to Lord John Howard and was therefore admitted quickly, the assistant quartermaster-general receiving him with his customary warmth. Hervey marvelled as ever at his friend’s ability to give the impression of having all the time in the world, though the business of the army came across his desk. It did not trouble him that Howard, by his own admission, had never heard a shot fired in anger: he knew how the army worked, and how to work it. But not only that: he had enjoyed the confidence of two very different commanders-in-chief – the Duke of Wellington and his predecessor, the Duke of York – and it looked very much as if he would gain that of a third. Hervey knew that whatever his own superiority at arms might be, he could never have filled his friend’s boots. Lord John Howard was no mere military courtier, as once he had supposed him to be; he was a staff officer, and one with a rare imagination for the consequences for those at the disposal of his pen –
and
for those at whose disposal that pen was.

‘My dear fellow, how very good it is to see you,’ said his friend, smiling, shaking Hervey’s hand almost boyishly, and indicating a chair. ‘I have just learned the deucedest piece of news, which I would have sent to you at once had you not so felicitously presented yourself.’

A messenger brought in coffee. Hervey had to wait while the coffee was poured before learning what it was that so animated his friend (it was evidently of a sensitive nature, not merely confidential). He took the opportunity to thank him for sending the reassurance of Peto’s absence from the Navarino casualty lists. As soon as the messenger was gone, he returned eagerly to the promised news. ‘Deucedest?’

Howard nodded, leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. ‘Have you heard of a place called Retford, in Nottinghamshire?’