A Regimental Affair mh-3 Read online

  Hervey paused another while, and then smiled. ‘You’ll think me proud, but he would not see the advantages in my new carbine. He could only see the faults. And that, I’ve observed, is the mark of someone become old.’

  Elizabeth gave him a disapproving look. ‘I should not wish you to be my judge in anything, brother!’

  ‘I have never known you to be other than an optimist – to a fault, indeed!’ he replied at once, opening the door of the house for her as if it were an end to the matter.

  The door to their father’s library was open, and the Reverend Thomas Hervey was sitting by his fire (a fire was always lit there throughout May) with glass in hand and contentment on his face. He turned as he heard them come in. ‘Well, well, well. Here’s a turn-up, eh? All those weeks troubling over my books, and then the archdeacon is all sweetness and light. I’m not sure I ever met a more reasonable fellow.’

  Elizabeth soon demonstrated that her brother’s opinion of her was more brotherly than exact. ‘Father, I should not be too quick to that sentiment were I you, for I did not observe any change in his mind, only a desire to have things done with.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Mr Hervey, disappointed with her opinion, though unsurprised – proud, in fact – that she should give it so freely. Elizabeth had been his mainstay these past three years since the death of his elder son.

  She poured him more sherry. ‘Well, Father, on each and every complaint you assured him that you believed you were following the practice of the early Church; “before Rome erred and strayed” – those were your very words.’

  Mr Hervey nodded, and Matthew Hervey grew a little in awe of his sister, for here were affairs that he had never had occasion for mastering.

  ‘And you gave him evidence, and cited authorities,’ Elizabeth continued. ‘And it seemed to me that the archdeacon was inclined to concede your argument lest it reveal his own ignorance. So that, even now, he may be delving into his books in order to refute that argument should the time come.’

  ‘Oh, now, surely—’ protested Mr Hervey.

  But Elizabeth persisted. ‘Because it appeared to me that the only issue on which he was certain that you stood in breach of any ordinance was that of facing east at the communion table. I notice that you forbore, for once, to call it an altar. And that was his chief concern.’

  Her brother thought it only right that he should make some contribution. ‘And how was this resolved, Father? The Prayer Book is quite explicit, is it not?’

  ‘Explicit, yes, but not dogmatic. I didn’t argue the point, though. I assured the archdeacon instead that he would hear of no further complaint in this regard.’

  ‘Oh, so you did concede in one matter at least!’ tried Hervey.

  ‘Matthew,’ his father replied gravely, ‘I have said what I have said.’

  Hervey looked a little chastened. And then his father relented. ‘Your friend from the wooden world is come, by the way.’

  ‘Captain Peto?’

  ‘He stays at the Bath Arms, but he’ll dine with us – in about an hour, indeed. We are all so late today.’

  Hervey was thoroughly enlivened by the news. ‘Oh how I wish Henrietta were back to meet him! There’ll be so little chance before Thursday. What did you think of him, Father? Is he not the very embodiment of a frigate captain?’

  ‘I thought him a very fine fellow at once,’ he replied squarely.

  Elizabeth smiled. ‘His voice was perhaps a little too great for such confined quarters, and he seemed to bump into the furniture rather a lot. But I liked him at once, too. Do you know, he says he believes this to be the furthest inland he has ever been?’

  Hervey’s smile was even broader. ‘I can well believe it!’ And then the clock struck the half-hour. ‘Oh, have you seen Johnson? I must tell him about tomorrow.’

  Elizabeth frowned, but it was an approving sort of frown. Private Johnson had preceded Hervey to Horningsham by several days, and with him Jessye, and had been warmly welcomed by all. ‘Find Hannah Towle first, for he’s been making eyes at her all day!’

  In a village such as Horningsham, which owed its well-being to a great house like Longleat, it was by no means unusual for important affairs of state to be played out within the witness of the meanest of its inhabitants. But even Horningsham did not expect ever to be party to the news that broke next morning. It appalled and fascinated everyone alike, from day-labourer to Lord Bath himself. The details were dreadful, and needed no embellishing in the retelling. The shock about the village was so apparent that even Private Johnson, a visitor with an undeveloped sensitivity, felt its strange effect during his progress from one end of Horningsham to the other on an errand for Hannah Towle.

  One of the yeoman farmers, the same that had proposed to Mrs Strange and whose property lay remote at the very edge of the parish bounds, had been found murdered in his own house, and his maidservant, the only other occupant, was likewise dead and her body disposed of in the garden well. Nothing more was known but that the house bore the signs of ransacking for money and valuables, and that the parish constable had hastened there at once. In no one’s memory had there ever been such a thing – in the most distant past, even – and it was everywhere assumed that the culprits must be from Warminster Common, which all knew to be a sink of growing proportions. Except, as the Reverend Thomas Hervey pointed out, the farm lay the other side of the village from the common, so the murderers would have had to make a very great detour in order not to have been seen there. The farmer himself had no kin in the village, and his maidservant’s family was from the neighbouring parish, so Mr Hervey had no immediate pastoral calling: the coroner’s business would likely be slow, and the funeral many days off therefore – a mercy in not claiming his attention as the wedding approached.

  At Longleat, Lord Bath was in a mood of some despair, for – the more personal effects of the crime apart – he believed it reflected ill on the stewardship of his demesne. Such things might happen in cities, or on an estate where the owner took no careful interest in affairs other than its rents. But not here. Wiltshire wasn’t Clare or Kerry after all, and he was not an absentee landlord. And what might the parish constable discover? He was good enough when it came to the odd bit of mischief, but this was altogether too grave a crime for a man whose principal occupation was the maintenance of the Longleat fire engine. No, it would not do. Lord Bath would not wait for the trail to go stone cold while Constable Gedge completed his thorough but fruitless enquiries. He would send at once to London for Bow Street detectors.

  When Hervey set out for Longleat in the mid-morning he had a mind to call on Mrs Strange to condole with her, for he imagined that an offer of marriage on the farmer’s part supposed some degree of intimacy, or at least familiarity. But as he passed the school he heard the children singing a hymn – and by no means a sombre one – so he presumed Mrs Strange was not so indisposed as to put off her charges and draw the curtains at home. He therefore rode on to his appointment with Henrietta, who would be returned, he trusted, from that nearby fashionable spa where ladies could find everything that a lady needed. The appointment was not so much with Henrietta, however, as the two of them with Mr Keble. John Keble had also dined at the vicarage the night before, and the meeting this morning, he had explained, was in order to discharge his obligation in certain matters respecting the Prayer Book.

  The meeting began well. They sat in a small summer breakfast room, the late spring sunshine warm through windows full east, with orchids from the Longleat hothouses about them. Hervey’s and Henrietta’s chairs were drawn close enough together for them to place a hand on one another’s from time to time, with Mr Keble’s chair somehow arranged so as not to be too formal, though not yet so intimate as to make for any additional awkwardness in his discourse with them.

  First Mr Keble explained that, in order to preach as he intended, and so that the dean, who was to officiate, might omit the lengthy declaration of the duties of man and wife which the Prayer Book otherwise require
d, he felt obliged to ‘share with them certain things’. And so the familiar injunctions of Saints Peter and Paul were rehearsed, and the parties were content. Then, with a certain delicacy of manner, he asked their leave to go a little further. He wished, with considerable authority as well as delicacy, to ‘lay their minds at rest’, as he put it; to disabuse them of any doubts they might have as to ‘the worthiness of the desires of the flesh within wedlock’. Henrietta smiled serenely, and her countenance gave no indication of whether the desires of the flesh were in any respect understood. Hervey shifted slightly in his chair, and feared somehow that his own understanding would be all too readily exposed.

  ‘For it would be contrary to all Christian doctrine,’ explained John Keble, ‘to imagine – as did the Gnostics – that the body is the enemy of the spiritual life.’ Henrietta listened as before. She had not the slightest notion of who the Gnostics were, but her instincts were true enough. Hervey had known who the Gnostics were, and what their heresy was, but had forgotten, and he drifted off into recollection of his Shrewsbury divinity. Indeed, he would have languished there an age had not John Keble’s discourse suddenly taken an unusually frank turn. Henrietta’s eyes lit, at last, as the young priest began speaking with perfect candour of the growth in love that came with its physical consummation. Hervey did not see her eyes, for he was avoiding them intently, wondering how a man so recently ordained priest, so unworldly a man, could speak of this so assuredly.

  ‘So let me conclude with Scripture,’ said Keble at length, and rather to Hervey’s relief. ‘Not St Paul, this time, but from the Old Testament – from the Song of Solomon.’

  Hervey glanced at Henrietta. She touched his hand for an instant, telling him at once she understood all, perfectly.

  ‘As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters,’ began John Keble.

  Henrietta smiled so happily that he paused, very deliberately.

  ‘As the apple among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’

  She smiled wide again. Her neck, where the demure single string of pearls circled it, became red in vivid patches, and her eyes grew larger.

  ‘He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.’

  Hervey at last turned full to Henrietta. She looked more desirable than at any time he had seen her, and he ceded his thoughts to all that the words aroused.

  The day of the marriage between Captain Matthew Paulinus Hervey, bachelor of the parish of Horningsham, and of Lady Henrietta Charlotte Anne Wharton Lindsay, spinster of the parish of Longbridge Deverill (as the banns had lately declaimed them), passed slowly at first – all too slowly, they would both agree – until, from about three in the afternoon, the time began to pass twice as quickly as it ought.

  And so, though he had made his preparations with meticulous care, the bridegroom found himself hastening to fasten the knee buttons of his regimental court dress as Lord John Howard, his supporter, looked anxiously at his watch. They got into the carriage a full fifteen minutes later than Hervey had planned, risking being caught behind others in the darkening lanes, but the driver earned himself a sovereign by taking his team at a canter the length of Horningsham and the park drive, arriving three minutes before the time Hervey had first intended. The groom was therefore content once more as they stepped down.

  It had not been his idea to wear uniform. A sombre coat would have been his preference, but Prince Leopold had worn his uniform at Carlton House, and so Henrietta had wished her affianced to do the same. Lord John Howard wore the selfsame uniform (albeit a brand new set) in which he had first appeared at the vicarage two years before. The memory of that unhappy business – when the lieutenant of foot guards had come with the mistaken orders for his arrest – crowded Hervey for an instant when, as then, they had got into the carriage. But all that had been put from his mind by the gallop to Longleat, and they stood now as if friends of long years.

  Longleat House was lit inside and out as he had never seen it before. The music of a string orchestra could be heard even above the talk of the seventy privileged guests who had just been treated to a dinner of immense refinement in the great dining room, and, indeed, of nearly the same number of only marginally less privileged guests who filled the Tudor hall: the yeomen and tenants of the village, those who had nursed bride or groom to adulthood, and the NCOs of the Sixth who would form their guard of honour. Roast pork filled their plates, and hops their glasses if burgundy was not to their liking. And both parties, separate and content, were now beginning to rise to make their way to the grand state room, where they would bear witness to the marriage vows.

  At one end of that elegant room was a velvet-covered altar, just as at Carlton House, with chapel ornaments brought from Longbridge Deverill, including two handsome candlesticks six feet high. A little string orchestra played Purcell airs as the principal wedding guests began to find their places in the ranks of gilded chairs, and at the rear the yeoman and tenants assembled, though in a more respectful hush – fine worsteds and cottons to the silks and satins in front. Hervey, quite composed, took his seat with his family. He had managed to exchange a few words with the NCOs as they took post along the wall at the back of the state room, and he was much gratified that their turnout was as fine as he had seen, perhaps finer; testimony to his troop serjeant-major’s authority, or else (dare he imagine?) to that mutual respect which was the regiment at its best. Serjeant Armstrong’s hessians were so mirror-like that Hervey thought he must have shuffled every step of the way to prevent their cracking across the instep.

  The Dean of Hereford, flanked by John Keble, entered quietly through a side door, and together they took their sedilia. Shortly afterwards the marquess’s butler, the master of ceremonies, gave a discreet nod, and Hervey left his place and went out to meet his bride.

  Hervey knew that a bride on her wedding day was transfigured. Legend had it so, as well as village lore. But Henrietta’s transfiguration was beyond anything he had imagined, for beneath the veil her features had an ethereal quality – her eyes, hair and complexion luminous. Her dress was exquisite, and he stood before her quite unable to express anything but utter admiration, and silently at that.

  ‘Sir! A button!’ snapped Private Johnson suddenly, having stationed himself with his customary prescience. ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ he said to Henrietta, pulling his captain aside into the little ante-room off the hall.

  Henrietta smiled warmly at so faithful a servant, and turned to her bridesmaids. ‘Elizabeth,’ she said, with perfect composure, ‘I have never been so sure of anything or anyone than at this moment.’ It was true that her bridegroom had perhaps never appeared to her more dashing in his regimentals than now, for levee dress set off everything in appearance about Matthew Hervey that a woman might admire. But more than that, she knew the uniform signified a strength and a constancy on which she might, with utmost certainty, rely. This ceremony might show Longleat at its finest, and witness to the great affection in which she was held by its lord, but she would quit it gladly for the complete affection with which Matthew Hervey would honour her, and would follow the trumpet for that love, no matter what its calls and privations. And she hoped he might soon trust in that.

  ‘Is tha all right, Cap’n ’Ervey?’ asked Johnson, pushing the needle once more into the stiffened cloth of the tunic collar to secure the idle button. ‘Tha looks like tha’s seen a ghost.’

  Hervey looked at his groom incomprehendingly. ‘What?’

  ‘Tha’s miles away, sir!’

  He had indeed been miles away. He had visited things years past, in his mind; all the way back to that first encounter with the little girl who had never been far from his thoughts ever since, deny them though he so often had. He smiled, the colour now coming back to his face. ‘I saw quite a few ghosts, Johnson. But they don’t trouble
me any more.’

  ‘Eh, sir?’

  ‘Never mind. Is that button fast yet?’

  ‘It is.’ Johnson knotted the thread, bit off the ends and fastened the collar up again.

  Hervey clapped him on the arm, grinned his thanks and took his place at Henrietta’s side.

  ‘Are we ready, Matthew?’ She smiled at him full again.

  This time he returned the smile – and with interest. He nodded to the master of ceremonies, who signalled to a footman, and the little string orchestra began the march from Alceste to which Hervey, his bride and her retinue would process to the altar.

  The seamstresses of Bath, whom Henrietta had long thought superior to those of London, had made so faithful a replica of Princess Charlotte’s wedding dress that it might have been supposed she wore the original. Except that Charlotte’s figure stood in unhappy comparison with Henrietta’s, and the removal of several yards of the silver cloth would not have been possible without destroying the overall effect. Layer upon layer of the costly fabric was sewn with silver thread, and embroidered at the borders with patterns of shells and bouquets. It was cut full below the high bodice, and while the original had – as many sadly observed – emphasized Charlotte’s corpulence, this Bath replica served only to present Henrietta’s figure in all its elegance. Somehow too, its frills, lace trimmings and garlands of diamonds wholly became her, rather than drawing attention away from her fine eyes and captivating face (under its wreath of rosebuds, leaves and brilliants). Princess Charlotte had graciously given Henrietta leave to imitate her; to flatter her, indeed, by such imitation. But there were several in the assembly that evening who said how providential it was that the royal pregnancy kept Charlotte from Longleat now.

  ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God,’ began the dean. He had said the words many times before, and yet always they seemed new and full of promise. ‘. . . To join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate . . .’