A Close Run Thing (50 page)

Horningsham, Wednesday 9 August

IT WAS A
little before ten o’clock, and the morning was already hot, when a coach drawn by two quality middleweight greys drew up to Horningsham vicarage. The horses were not fresh, their shoulders were in a lather and the dappling on their quarters was accentuated by prodigious sweating. The coachman himself looked no fresher, his face grimy and his shirt almost black with the dust of the road. Down from the carriage stepped a tall man in his mid-twenties wearing white breeches, court shoes and the long-tailed coat of a Foot Guards officer, for all the world looking as if he were alighting in St James’s Palace yard to attend a levee. After stretching stiff limbs, brushing the dust from his shoulders and placing his cocked hat under his arm, he exchanged a few words with the coachman and walked towards the house. Vexed that no servant had appeared to assist with the horses, he was already
disposed
to some disdain of it. Here was no classical architect’s expertise, for sure; rather, was it the haphazard work of successive country builders. The oriel window was quite fine, he conceded, and there was about it a quaint charm, but the house did not betoken a well-endowed living: of that he was certain. He pulled the bell rope at the door, self-consciously adjusted the aiglets on his right shoulder and waited for an answer. At length (too
great
a length, he considered), it was opened by Francis, stooping more than usually, who after the officer’s introduction, which he did not fully hear, showed him into the vicar of Horningsham’s modest library.

Francis was now in something of quandary, for the Reverend Thomas Hervey was at the school and his wife was with him. Elizabeth was taking a walk, and the only member of the family at home was engaged in what Francis judged to be an affair long overdue. This visitor from … (he had not quite heard) could not, in calling unannounced, presume upon him therefore. ‘It may be some time before anyone is at home,’ he said. To which the officer replied that he would wait indefinitely.

Meanwhile, in the drawing room, the overdue affair was reaching some conclusion. ‘And that is why I am late in coming here,’ explained Matthew Hervey. He was seated on a long settee, with Henrietta a further distance along it than he would have liked, and he was recounting, though not without interruption, his
movements
during the past momentous six weeks. ‘Believe me, I should not have been spared from garrison duties in Paris had it not been for these other necessities.’

‘Well, Matthew dearest,’ began Henrietta with a wry smile, ‘I should never have supposed that the profession of arms brought such intercourse, and with so
many
ladies of evident charm and accomplishments. It seems such a pity that the unhappy circumstances of these encounters should otherwise mar the enjoyment of them.’

He hesitated. There was no mistaking the challenge that her smile belied. ‘Madam,’ he began (for her name was still not habitual with him), ‘do not think for an instant that …’ But it would have been better had he hesitated a little longer before beginning, and then he might have finished his protest with resolution.

‘Think
what
, sir?’ she demanded, her eyebrows arched high. ‘Think that you might take some pleasure in feminine company?’

‘No … well, that is …’ he stammered.

‘
No
, you do not take such pleasure? Or
no
, I should not
think
it?’

There was a knock at the door, and Hervey could not conceal his relief when Francis appeared. ‘Begging your pardon, Master Matthew and your Ladyship, but there is an officer waiting to see someone.’

‘An officer?’ asked Hervey uncertainly. ‘To see me?’

‘I don’t rightly know, sir; I’m sorry as I didn’t quite discern what the gentleman said.’

Hervey looked at Henrietta, who smiled. ‘Perhaps, Matthew, if you were to receive him, his purpose might be revealed? I do not suppose it will be any great mystery.’

Francis announced their visitor with as much recall as he was able. The name ‘Howard’ was all that Hervey could glean from this fumbled introduction, but he knew him at once to be a lieutenant of Foot Guards and general’s aide-de-camp. But he could not begin to imagine what might bring St James’s to Horningsham. ‘Good morning to you, Mr Howard,’ he said, offering his hand, though the officer seemed a trifle reluctant to take it. ‘How may we assist you?’

And equally reluctant did he seem to reveal his purpose, so that Henrietta, losing patience, felt it necessary to reassure him: ‘Sir, do not suppose that I shall reveal the secrets of the Horse Guards to the French – or even to the people of Wiltshire!’

The officer cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Mr Hervey, you will recall delivering a dispatch from his grace the Duke of Wellington to the Horse Guards two weeks past?’

‘Of course,’ replied Hervey.

‘And you did not await an acknowledgement.’

‘No – I did not expect one.’

‘
You
did not expect one, Mr Hervey? Were you not on his
grace’s
business?’

‘Not so; that is … not directly.’ Even as he answered he felt a gnawing doubt. At the time his business seemed clear enough; now he was less certain.
‘I
was on an assignment as regards regimental affairs and carried the dispatch as a supplementary duty. The clerk at the Horse Guards showed no urgency to attend to it. I had other matters to be about.’

‘Just so, Mr Hervey,’ replied the officer coolly. ‘I am commanded to request that you accompany me to the Horse Guards immediately.’

A request by a senior officer, conveyed as it was by an ADC, was to all intents and purposes an order. A moment’s impatience with the headquarters clerk and it had come to this: for an instant he supposed he might next be asked for his sword. Was it, he wondered, the curse of Slade?

‘Immediately, did you say?’ snapped Henrietta, making Hervey start almost as much as the officer. ‘You must understand that it is quite impossible!’

‘Madam,’ he began, ‘I understand that it might not be to your convenience, but I have the most explicit instructions to insist that Mr Hervey accompany me. The adjutant-general himself—’

‘Sir, it is indeed no little inconvenience, for Mr Hervey and I are to be married this coming month!’

Hervey was dumbfounded. He looked at the officer with blank astonishment, and then again at Henrietta.

‘Is that not what we were speaking of this very moment past, Matthew?’ she challenged.

A minor commotion in the hall signalled the return of the vicar of Horningsham and his lady. Hervey’s mother bustled into the drawing room with loud protests that her absence at the school had been in the
ignorance
of her visitor’s calling. ‘My dear,’ she gushed to Henrietta, ‘why did not you tell us you were to call – and today of all days when cook is at her sister’s?’

‘It is of no moment whatever, Mrs Hervey,’ began Henrietta with a smile and a touch of the hand upon her arm. ‘Matthew and I were met to discuss our arrangements.’

‘Arrangements?’ asked his mother.

Another commotion attended the return of Elizabeth, who swept into the room, pulling off her broad straw hat and throwing it on to a chair. ‘Arrangements, did I hear
arrangements
?’ she laughed.

The Reverend Thomas Hervey protested: ‘That is what was said, and I dare say they are entirely private arrangements and no business of ours!’

Elizabeth, most unusually, now giggled. Her eyes twinkled, her mouth parted and her ringlets danced. The sun, despite the hat, had worked its usual way with her face, and freckles dotted her cheeks. The officer was staring at her when first she noticed him. Not awaiting any introduction she strode five full paces over to him and held out her hand. ‘And you will be one of Matthew’s friends?’ she beamed. ‘Only his serjeants call on us as a rule!’

The officer caught his breath as best he could, but not before Henrietta spoke to her enquiry. ‘No, my dear – not a friend; for sure not a friend. He is come to take my future husband from me, and forcibly if necessary.’

Elizabeth hesitated (though showing no surprise at
Henrietta’s
notice of marriage), and then narrowed her eyes to a fearsome challenge.

The officer who had at first disdained this provincial household was routed. He blushed and stammered an apology. ‘I hope you will understand, ma’am,’ he concluded.

‘I have never heard of such a thing!’ said Elizabeth, and with so much indignation as to make Hervey himself wince. ‘I had always thought us too far ashore for the press-gang. Why must you take him?’

At which point Hervey’s father thought fit to re-assert sovereignty in his own vicarage. ‘I am afraid, sir, that our manners here are not what they might be in London. I am the Reverend Thomas Hervey, vicar of this parish; and this is my wife …’ he continued, turning to Hervey’s mother, who frowned and made a small bow, ‘my daughter, Elizabeth … and my son, and my … ah, Lady Henrietta Lindsay,’ he said, indicating each in turn.

‘I am obliged, sir. Lord John Howard …’ And he in turn bowed.

‘Well, then, sir,’ resumed Elizabeth, ‘upon what necessity do you take our brother, son and soon-to-be husband from us all?’

‘I am sorry, Miss Hervey, you will understand that the interests of the Service—’

‘Do not you tell me about the interests of the Service, sir!’ she replied sharply. ‘Do not you presume us to be so country-bred that we know nothing of affairs! My brother is only yesterday returned from the
Continent
, where he might have been killed on the field at Waterloo. Were
you
at Waterloo, sir?’

‘Oh, Matthew, he was a stuffed shirt, a real cold fish. “The interests of the Service”, indeed. Who does he think we are? What can be so important about that dispatch?’

Hervey had chided her the instant Lieutenant the Lord John Howard had taken temporary leave for the Bath Arms (where he hoped to find a tub in which to soak, and horses for their immediate return). No entreaty by Hervey’s father had been able to persuade him to take his refreshment at the vicarage. Instead it had been agreed that he would return at two to begin their journey to London – for such was the address, he insisted, with which he had been enjoined to act.

‘I think it must be a serious matter,’ conceded Hervey to his sister, though with little more than a frown. ‘I have clearly misjudged things, but’ – a smile overcame him – ‘I do not much care, for Henrietta and I are resolved to marry the instant I return. She declares she will brook no more absence!’

‘But
how
serious do you suppose it might be, Matthew?’ asked his father. ‘What could be the nature of the complaint against you?’

‘Well, sir, what I suppose is this: that there is some message which waits upon my return to France. I dare say there will be another month or so’s duty in Paris – that is all.’

‘And for this their lordships would send an officer from London?’ he replied doubtfully.

Hervey merely lifted an eyebrow.

The fresh pair of livery horses brought from Warminster took the carriage at a good speed along the turnpikes. Repaired in the spring and not yet rutted by the autumn rains, the roads admitted comfortable progress and, thereby, easy conversation, but neither of the occupants of the carriage spoke a word. By six o’clock they were in Whitchurch, and the coachman hove in to a posthouse to water his team.

As they stepped down Howard broke the silence. ‘Look, Hervey,’ he began with a warmth in stark contrast to his earlier cool formality, ‘this is very unsatisfactory for you. I was sent by General Calvert after a great deal of shouting in the commander-in-chief’s office when the Duke of Wellington returned. I allowed my own vexation at having to be about this business to intrude upon my courtesies with your family. I fear they may not forgive it, your sister especially, and I had no right to presume your guilt in the matter, either. I beg your pardon.’

‘Thank you, Howard, but it is no matter,’ replied Hervey with a shrug. ‘I was unquestionably hasty in leaving the Horse Guards that morning, but it was not on my own account that I did so. And as for my family, well …’

‘Will you be wantin’ t’eat, m’lord?’ called the driver.

‘No, we must press on at best speed, Allchurch. I
want
to be through the Piccadilly bar by seven. We will need to change horses in Farnham, I would suppose. I’ll sleep a little now and relieve you of the reins in the early hours if you wish. You are quite sure of the road?’

‘Oh ay, y’Lordship: it’s changed not a farthin’sworth since past years. This team’ll get us to Farnham betimes. I’ll prime the pistols now, though: it used to be a bad stretch here to Guildford in the dark.’

Their progress along the turnpike, with the fullest of moons, was faster even than by day, for there was little carting traffic until they reached the outskirts of London in the early dawn. Allchurch had stopped only once, in Farnham, to change the two bays, and by five they were in Chelsea village, slowed to a walk by the carting traffic into the city and by that already returning with horse dung and night soil, a convenient circular trade. Both passengers were now awake, Howard strangely animated by the bustle, in telling contrast with his languor at Horningsham. Along the King’s Road he jumped out and stopped an ice-cart, empty but for one block under an insulating canvas. He bought three pieces the size of house bricks, throwing one up to Allchurch and then climbing back inside to give one to his charge. Hervey smiled at him for the first time.

In less than an hour they were passing the bar at Piccadilly and, turning into St James’s Street, Lord
John
Howard could at last feel at home, for the coach halted outside White’s. ‘We shall use my club to dress,’ he said airily, ‘but first a barber to shave us and then some breakfast – you
will
have some breakfast?’

Hervey, for all the anxiety that had been mounting since they had entered the capital’s environs, readily agreed. Indeed, he found himself wanting to talk, in part as distraction from what he now feared must come but also to return Howard’s increasing warmth. ‘It is only my second time here: d’Arcey Jessope once brought me,’ he added.