Man Of War mh-9 Page 9

  No, that would not do; it smacked of deceit. He must speak with her before dinner. Let them have it out, and then if she did not see where sense and duty lay (he could hardly conceive that possible, but then in her present state of evident . . . derangement, anything was possible) – if she could not see the proper course, then she would have the whole of their dinner to reflect on the situation, the whole unhappy, untoward business!

  In consequence of the shocking family news, Hervey was able to afford Georgiana only a brief interview, promising to spend the morning with her instead. She told him of her pony – the one he had bought her when he had come back from India – and the Broadwood piano (which he had sent her for her . . . he did not remember quite which birthday). She wanted to play for him there and then. But he had to protest that it was a pleasure he must suspend until the morning too.

  Georgiana was disappointed, but not excessively so, for she understood that her father had travelled a very great distance and would wish to rest. And there was his friend Captain Fairbrother to be looked after, and Aunt Elizabeth too . . .

  Hervey professed himself grateful to Georgiana for her patience, and accompanied her to her bedroom, where he saw that the housemaid had already brought a bowl of hot water. ‘I retire myself without assistance, Papa,’ she said, matter of fact rather than proud.

  ‘Very well,’ he replied, kissing her forehead. ‘Until the morning.’

  Elizabeth was in their father’s book room when Hervey sought her out. She had put on an evening dress, quite formal, and she looked perfectly composed when he entered.

  ‘Well, brother, you have spoken with Mama and will know my news. That is why you are come, is it not? Mama sent for you?’

  Hervey was thrown disconcerted on to the defensive. ‘I should anyway have come at the first opportunity.’

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows challengingly.

  ‘But Elizabeth, this is a sorry affair. I—’

  ‘Sorry? Sorry, Matthew? I see no cause for sorrow. I had hoped you might take pleasure in my happiness!’

  Hervey now raised his eyebrows. ‘I did. I most certainly did – last year when you accepted Peto’s offer of marriage.’

  Elizabeth looked away momentarily. ‘I am very sorry, of course, to disappoint so good a man as Captain Peto.’ She looked directly at him again. ‘But I took advantage of that same good nature. I should never have accepted the offer, for I did not love him.’

  Hervey looked at her, astonished, incredulous. ‘But you would have come to love him. He is so fine a man. What else could you wish for?’

  Elizabeth smiled benignly, almost indulgently. ‘I cannot marry a man I do not love, Matthew, no matter how much I admire him.’

  Hervey shook his head, lowered his voice and spoke slowly. ‘How can you go back on your promise? And why was I not to know until now, and from Mama?’

  Elizabeth returned the challenge in his eyes, calmly defiant. ‘I did not promise. That would have been for the marriage ceremony itself.’

  Hervey bridled at what he perceived as casuistry. ‘Elizabeth! You gave your answer to a man who was sailing to face the King’s enemies. Is that not of some moment?’

  Elizabeth almost smiled in her exasperation. ‘You mean it mightn’t be so bad if he were merely on a guard-ship at Portsmouth?’

  Hervey was positively angering. ‘I mean, is Peto not due some especial consideration thereby?’

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘He is, of course. And I shall write to him in the most considerative terms, I assure you.’

  ‘You have not written to him?’

  ‘I have written to him, yes. I have written several letters to him – why would not you think that I had? But . . . I am only lately come to the certainty that I cannot marry him, and therefore to the resolve to write to him in those terms. Do you know how long it takes a letter to reach him?’

  Hervey was puzzled by the turn. ‘No?’

  ‘Well nor do I! I have not received a single letter since he sailed, and that the better part of a year ago. I know, of course, that he will have written, but I don’t suppose the mails are obliging at sea.’

  ‘Elizabeth, there is an irreverence in your tone which I find incomprehensible. Do you not understand that Peto commands the most powerful of His Majesty’s ships presently at sea, or that he has held that command in the greatest of sea battles since Trafalgar?’

  A note of pleading replaced the wholly defiant: ‘But Matthew, I cannot be obliged to marry a man against my inclinations on account of his gallantry . . . or on account of my previous error of judgement.’

  Hervey found no answer.

  ‘Besides, I love Major Heinrici.’

  ‘I cannot believe it!’

  ‘That I love someone? Whyever not, Matthew? You knew him once indeed: you must admit that he too is a fine man.’

  ‘I? Knew him once?’

  ‘In Spain, and at Waterloo.’

  Hervey was beginning a very distant recollection . . .

  ‘In the King’s German Legion.’

  Hervey now recalled it – but a Rittmeister, a captain of cavalry, a man several years his senior. ‘I don’t understand . . . How . . .’

  ‘He is a widower. His wife died three years ago. There are three children – three daughters.’ Elizabeth’s face brightened with a happy confidence that even Hervey could not fail to recognize. Indeed, he had never seen her face thus.

  He turned away. He must not let such a consideration cloud his judgement.

  * * *

  Dinner was not a joyful event. Hervey had told Fairbrother what had transpired between Elizabeth and him, as much as anything to save his friend from any innocent but uncomfortable remark at table. Fairbrother, however, had registered bewilderment at Hervey’s vehemence, and the following morning, while his friend walked with Georgiana and her pony in Longleat Park, he offered to accompany Elizabeth on an errand towards Warminster.

  ‘I am sorry you have met us in these less than concordant circumstances, Captain Fairbrother,’ Elizabeth began, forthright, before they were long left the parsonage.

  Fairbrother was not in the least discomfited. Rather he welcomed the opportunity to address the matter. ‘Do not trouble for my part, Miss Hervey; I am only sorry that there is any occasion for discord in so evidently close a family as yours, about which I have heard much.’

  ‘You are very gracious, sir,’ replied Elizabeth, and meaning it. ‘I am gratified at least to know that we occupy some part of my brother’s thoughts when he is at his duties.’

  Fairbrother sensed the acerbity, for all Elizabeth’s sweetness. ‘Miss Hervey, forgive my interference, but I have spent much time of late in your brother’s company, and I can certainly attest to his thoughts in that regard. He has been more occupied with what he perceives as his familial duty than I have observed in any man.’

  Elizabeth smiled, conceding. ‘I am sure it is so, Captain Fairbrother. Indeed, I wish at times he were not so very occupied.’

  Fairbrother frowned. ‘You think it ill suited to him in some way?’

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘In truth I do, for he cannot think . . . evenly. He is bound still by some sense of guilt in the loss of his wife, and I am sure that it clouds his judgement in all things.’

  ‘I may certainly attest to the rawness of his feelings in regard to his late wife.’

  Elizabeth’s expression became pained. ‘She was my good friend too, sir.’

  She did not add ‘Matthew forgets that’, but there was no need. And Fairbrother began to perceive the extent of her solitude – only daughter of a poor country living, unwed, no longer on calling terms at Longleat. It was all too clear why she had been content – happy, even – to accept an offer of marriage from one as sure as Captain Sir Laughton Peto; and then so decided when that most extraordinary, unexpected, unlooked-for, disconcerting thing – true love – should befall her. At this very moment he wished to put a protecting, brotherly arm around her – as her own brother ought – and
to assure her of his strenuous support. ‘Miss Hervey, in this I would hope to be your good friend as well as your brother’s too. I am gratified – forgive me – to see you are so solicitous of his well-being. May I ask you a question?’

  ‘You may ask whatever you please, Captain Fairbrother, but I beg you would not try to divert me from the course I have chosen, for it would be both fruitless and disagreeable.’

  ‘Miss Hervey, I would not dream of it. I wished only to ask of your brother’s intended. I will be frank: he has not spoken of her in any terms but the most matter-of-fact – where they are to live and such like. Do you know the lady?’

  Elizabeth again quickened her pace, as much as to say she was on safer ground and could proceed without circumspection. ‘I have met Lady Lankester the once but could form no opinion of her. If Matthew has concluded that she will make him a good wife then I can have nothing more to do with it.’

  Fairbrother noted the return of acerbity. He wondered if Elizabeth were making the point that in denying her brother the right to interfere in her own choice of partner in the marriage stakes, she must likewise forfeit that right. But he was inclined to proceed with a certain blitheness, if only to bring the matter to an amicable close. ‘Well, I may judge for myself, for I believe we shall go to Hertfordshire soon.’

  Elizabeth stopped suddenly, her ears pricked. The call of the cuckoo came again, clearly and not so very distant. ‘The cuckoo, Captain Fairbrother.’ She smiled, happily – the first he had seen her smile thus. ‘I walk these lanes every day, and it is the first cuckoo I have heard this spring.’

  ‘Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! ’

  ‘Indeed, Captain Fairbrother! You like Wordsworth?’

  ‘I do – very much so, Miss Hervey. He was a little contrary, though, was he not? A vile, unholy bird did he not call the cuckoo elsewhere?’

  ‘I believe he did,’ said Elizabeth, smiling, a little wry. ‘But I believe a poet, at least, might be allowed some contrariness of opinion – as any man.’

  Fairbrother smiled to himself.

  ‘Where does the cuckoo go in winter? Or do they merely stay silent? Oh, I had not thought: are there cuckoos in Jamaica?’

  Fairbrother returned her smile, which had now its usual sweetness. ‘Oh, indeed yes, Miss Hervey. And very gay-painted they are – unlike, I imagine, your English birds!’

  ‘I confess I have never seen one, in winter or in summer. And I may say, Captain Fairbrother, that never have I heard its call with such pleasure.’

  She said it so decidedly, not a trace wistful.

  Fairbrother fancied he understood, for both Elizabeth’s face and manner were ever open and expressive. Many summers must have come and gone, and many a village wedding, yet his friend’s sister had remained in her unwed state, every summer the same, but a year older – riper, as the Prayer Book so felicitously put it – until now, when there was the happy prospect before her of matrimony. And undoubtedly to a man she loved, and rather passionately it seemed. Perhaps there was even the prospect of children, for Elizabeth Hervey was surely not beyond the age of childbearing?

  ‘Georgiana, you would do well to keep your heels lowered,’ said Hervey, somewhat peremptorily.

  His daughter, delighting in the sole attention (as she thought) of her father, was only too content to oblige him without demur; and in any case, she was accustomed to a certain abruptness in his manner, for she knew that there was little time for pleasantries when speaking to his soldiers in the face of the King’s enemies.

  ‘It won’t do, you know, Georgiana: you will have to begin riding side-saddle. Your aunt really should have insisted on it before now.’

  ‘It is not Aunt Elizabeth’s fault,’ replied Georgiana pluckily. ‘For I would not have it.’

  Hervey was not inclined to let a child’s insistence excuse the dereliction. ‘That is as may be, but it does not alter things. You cannot go about astride now that you are’ (he had to think for a moment) ‘ten.’ Nor, indeed, when she was about to leave the county for rather more polished society. That, however, he would not mention – for the time being.

  ‘But I don’t want to ride side-saddle,’ she insisted, shaking her head.

  Hervey had not begun the walk with the question of Georgiana’s seat uppermost in his mind (or, indeed, in his mind at all). He had not been bent on some quarrel with her on account of the propriety of riding astride. Rather had he found himself continuing vexed by Elizabeth’s defiant manner – as if she wilfully misunderstood his good intentions, and likewise failed to see the injury all this would do to the family; and not least to Peto, who even now might be making his way hither in the happy expectation of marriage – or at any rate doing further battle in the Mediterranean in the comfortable knowledge that Elizabeth waited for him decently at home. She had even had the audacity to ask if he – Peto’s good friend at that – would go with her to meet this Heinrici! It was scarcely to be borne. It was as if their whole life to this day, the notion of duty on which they had been brought up in that Wiltshire parsonage, reinforced by the Scripture they had each of them heard in equal measure, counted for nothing. That a man (or a woman) might throw over what he knew to be the right course to secure that which was the more pleasant to him! And was not the pleasure a delusion too? How might any man (or woman) take pleasure with the awful prospect of being haunted by a failing in duty? It would come to gnaw at the vitals, would it not? Then there would be no more pleasure, only infinite pain to endure – much greater pain than a man might fancy he must bear on rejecting the course of pleasure in the first place.

  He cursed himself. All this vexation was intruding on his time with his daughter – little enough as that always was. ‘I—’

  ‘I know why you are angry with Aunt Elizabeth.’ (Hervey tried to protest but Georgiana would not be stayed.) ‘It is because she wants to marry Major Heinrici and not Captain Peto!’

  Hervey’s mouth fell open. How did Georgiana know of it?

  ‘I like Captain Peto, but I like Major Heinrici better. He is very jolly, and he has three daughters who are all very pretty and nice.’

  Hervey checked himself. His first instinct was to chide Georgiana for speaking of that which she – a child – could not understand, for daring to presume to interfere in business that was so patently not hers. Except that there was nothing childlike in her evident powers of observation and discernment. And in truth he could scarcely deny that the business was as much hers as his, for although he essayed to act (at his mother’s bidding) as paterfamilias, it was Georgiana whose daily living was to be affected until such time as he, her father, set up his own household. And when would that be, she might well ask.

  He forced himself (the effort truly was not great) to smile, and he patted her thigh. ‘I am sure Major Heinrici is an agreeable man, Georgiana, and that he has very agreeable daughters, but . . . I think you will understand that your Aunt Elizabeth has given an undertaking – a promise, indeed – to marry Captain Peto, and that it is quite impossible now that she should . . . default on that promise.’ The pony was quickening its pace in the distraction that was the discussion of duty, and Hervey found himself having to stride out not wholly comfortably. ‘Do try to keep your pony in hand,’ he added, as pleasantly as he could. ‘Else I shall be forced to conclude you should not be off the lead rein!’

  Georgiana brought the little gelding back to collection without remark, intent as she was on the more important matter. ‘But if you promise something and then you learn later that for some reason it cannot be as you had supposed, it is surely not right to continue as if nothing had happened?’

  The unexpected requirement to explain himself was irksome, but Hervey was pleased nevertheless – proud even – of this evidence of his daughter’s intelligence and sensibility. It boded well, for he had never, he hoped, been of the belief, as were many, that a woman ought to have no opinion on any matter of substance. Quite the opposite indeed. And besides, the females of his acquainta
nce had hardly been of a reticent persuasion either. He smiled again, perhaps a shade indulgently, but certainly warmly. ‘You know, my dear Georgiana, these things – I trust you will not misunderstand me – will be so much the better addressed when you are older. But for the moment I believe I can say that there are many roads to marriage, and that after starting on one it is not necessarily the wiser to depart from it when the ways become heavy, for all roads have their difficulties. It was on the best road in the country that my good friend Major Strickland was killed, a road well made and fast – admitting of too much speed indeed.’ He suddenly wondered if the morbid metaphor were entirely apt.

  ‘I do not believe I agree with you, Papa, but I understand what it is that you say, and Aunt Elizabeth has always impressed on me that that is as it must be.’

  Hervey could not have faulted his sister’s regulation. He nodded.

  ‘Aunt Elizabeth always says we must be especially attentive to what you say because we may not see things as do you, who moves in society.’

  Hervey stifled an embarrassed cough. He reckoned he probably owed more to Elizabeth’s sound sense, learned as it may have been very parochially, than to that of elevated society. ‘Yes, well, that is very proper of your aunt.’

  ‘Will you come with us to Major Heinrici’s, then, this afternoon, Papa? The youngest Miss Heinrici has her birthday today – she is seven – and there is to be a party.’

  In that instant, Hervey almost said that he would, not for his sister’s sake (although he would have to admit to the merest softening in his attitude on account of Georgiana’s advocacy), but because seeing his daughter’s delight at the prospect was truly engaging. To do so, however, would be an implicit disloyalty to his friend Peto; and his scruple – and his stomach – would not permit it. Elizabeth had lost her way. These things happened while travelling. It was not always easy to tell that a road led nowhere. Even the best of guides could take the wrong turning in a storm. But he, Elizabeth’s brother, could see things very well. He knew which was the right road, and what steps she must take to regain it. He would help her. That was his brotherly duty, unwelcome as first it might be.