But Peto had not yet returned to his own house. That much he knew. How might he ever return, indeed, needing the ministry of nursemaids? And where were the nursemaids to live – and the cook and the housemaids and the valet and all the others who would needs attend on him, for his house, he had always protested, was very small (‘good only for a curate’, he used to say)?
‘I was William Cholmondeley’s fag at Eton – the marquess’s brother. He was not a hard taskmaster.’
Hervey, still contemplating his old friend’s abject condition, scarcely heard. He pinched himself. ‘Indeed?’
‘Now he’s member for Castle Rising, a stone’s throw from Houghton – a rotten borough!’
Hervey frowned. ‘St Alban, you try me.’
But St Alban was not going to allow the opportunity to pass. ‘Truly, Colonel, how can it serve that another green mound, like Old Sarum, returns a member – two members indeed – and Birmingham none?’
Hervey sighed indulgently. ‘I suppose you might argue that if our forefathers, who strove so manfully to make a parliament, chose to dispose the seats in this way, who now should gainsay them?’
‘Colonel, are not members of parliament meant to be lawmakers, not antiquarians?’
Hervey smiled. ‘Castle Rising is, I grant you, from what I observed when we came out of Linn Regis, a place that might not justify returning two members – or, I grant you, even one. But hard cases make bad laws, as I’ve said before. So how does a good Whig square his conscience and accept a rotten borough?’
St Alban smiled by return. ‘Cholmondeley is a Tory, Colonel. Perhaps in the circumstances – our going to Houghton and all – it is better that I do not speak of Reform.’
‘I think so too. We are here, after all, for the preservation of the peace, not to excite tumult. Besides, I shouldn’t want to be denied the best port.’
They went by way of Dereham, which they’d visited earlier and knew there were good post-horses to be got, and Fakenham, which they’d not seen, and where they rested the Dereham hirelings – excellent clean-limbed trotters – and ate a hearty stew of mutton. Their progress had been slow on account of the roads – cross roads not turnpikes – which would have been better going before the thaw; and also to spare the horses, for they were unsure if they’d find a change at Fakenham (which in the event, they did not, the place keeping changes only for ‘The Hero’ plying between Linn and Cromer). So on they drove for Houghton with the tiring roadsters and the no less wearying Corporal Wakefield and his fellow postilion.
The Linn road, fortunately, was flat, turnpiked and in good repair, but they took it at just a jogging trot, and stretches walking, for Hervey had told Corporal Wakefield that they’d be out again in the morning and he didn’t wish to beg fresh horses. It was a full two hours after leaving the Red Lion in Fakenham, therefore, that they turned off for New Houghton – ‘new’ not because, like so many villages in the county, the Black Death had carried off the old, but because a century before, the prime minister – the first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole – had uprooted the old (save the church) to make way for his great new house and its park. But Sir Robert had done his tenants well, reckoned Hervey, seeing how good and large were the cottages – profit too of the public purse.
And what profit: the drive from lodge to house was as splendid as any he’d seen – ancient oaks, sweet chestnut, so many deer as to be uncountable, and the house itself greater than Longleat, perhaps even Wilton. What a piece of work this Walpole must have been, who ‘judged of men’s worth by the weight of their fee’. And then an earldom … Yet, as in Adam, all die; and Walpole had been dust these many years. Was all this a monument to anything worthy? He began to grow restless. He was uncertain whether he could like this present châtelain, for all his hospitality to Peto.
And then he shook himself. He had a strange disposition to resentment – ‘strange’ because, as a steadfast Tory, he believed essentially in the old order of things. ‘Are you well acquainted with the family, would you say, St Alban?’
After so prolonged a silence his travelling companion was a little taken aback. ‘I … I am acquainted, Colonel, yes. But I cannot claim intimacy.’
‘Mm.’
‘Is there anything you wish to know? I—’
Hervey waved a hand. ‘No matter. We shall see what we shall see.’
But if St Alban would have known more, and Hervey, their thoughts were diverted now by the appearance of several footmen, who beckoned Corporal Wakefield towards an arch beneath the piano nobile, like that at the Horse Guards.
‘My dear friend!’
The voice boomed in the arcade as if through a speaking-trumpet.
Hervey saw and was astonished: Peto, standing. A stick, yes, and his right sleeve tucked in a pocket – but upright, and … hale.
‘I spied you half a mile distant. On watch since four bells!’ He advanced determinedly, and none too stiffly, thrusting out his left hand.
Hervey took it and tried to summon words adequate for the miraculous transformation of the man he had called an invalide. ‘My dear, dear Peto – I’m … all astonishment. I …’
‘Salt baths, Hervey. Every day for a year. And walks in yonder park. And the deucedest fine nursing a man ever had.’
Hervey shook his head in disbelief, still clutching the hand. ‘The nation owes Lord Cholmondeley a debt it can never repay!’
Peto nodded decidedly. ‘The best of men, Hervey; the best of men. I’m only sorry he’s not at home … But there’s other company – but now, who’s your friend?’
The ‘friend’ took a step forward and bowed. ‘Cornet St Alban, Sir Laughton.’
‘St Alban? There was a St Alban at Lissa – Hoste’s flag lieutenant.’
‘A cousin, Sir Laughton. Later captain of Niobe.’
‘Indeed he was. Well, well.’ He turned to Hervey with the look of the quarterdeck. ‘And what was the signal Hoste raised before the action?’
Hervey looked bemused. ‘I confess I know but the one – “England expects …”.’
‘Not so very far adrift, Hervey. Do you know, Mr St Alban?’
‘“Remember Nelson”, Sir Laughton.’
‘By heavens, sir – exactly so! And you should’ve heard the cheering! Norfolk man, y’know, Hervey. Father was parson over at Ingol’thorpe. My God, how the parsonages of Norfolk have served this country! Married county, too – a Walpole. Fine woman. An’ he died but fifteen months ago. What loss, what loss …’
Hervey was so moved by his old friend’s animation that he felt as if the lump in his throat would grow to choke him. Tears welled up.
‘And— ’Pon my soul, is that you, Johnson?’
Johnson had got down from the second chaise, looking to make good his escape to the servants’ hall. He braced. ‘It is, sir. Very good to see you looking so well, if I might say so, sir.’
‘You may. You may indeed.’
‘Except that it is Corporal Johnson now,’ said Hervey.
‘Corporal, eh? Then I’ll order grog for all hands.’
‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much,’ chirped the half-frozen groom.
Peto’s smile was ever broader. ‘Now, Hervey, your dragoons and your horses will be given every comfort, and I shall seek the same for you and Cornet St Alban.’ He turned and waved his stick in the air like a huntsman rallying hounds.
Footmen and grooms swarmed on the carriages. St Alban excused himself on the pretext of seeing up the papers.
Peto clasped Hervey’s shoulder. ‘Shall you first look over the house, or have some refreshment – tea, to restore; coffee, to rouse; or brandy, to invigorate perhaps?’
Hervey smiled. It was as if they were aboard Nisus again, when first they’d met – warily, to be sure, at first; and forged the firmest friendship on the long passage to India. ‘It’s already darkening too quickly to appreciate the house’s evident superiority, and, besides, I came to see you, my dear friend, not Mr Kent.’
‘Ah,
so you are acquainted with the house?’
‘Only from the directory with which I’ve been travelling. Houghton and a good many others. Tea?’
‘Capital! Tea it is. And we shall take it like Christians. Besides, the family sold off the best pictures years ago.’
Nevertheless they passed along marbled corridors hung with paintings that, to Hervey’s mind, were of the first quality. He supposed he had not seen so many great houses, but he had seen Blenheim; and here was display of that same order. They came eventually, however, to a drawing room that was imposing in its proportion and decoration yet comfortable in its furnishing. And a fire burned brightly, for which he was grateful.
‘Yes, I had it built up with good Houghton lumber,’ said Peto, tugging heartily on the bell-pull. ‘And I threw on some tarred flotsam picked up on my rounds. It’s been damnably cold without, but in here I might fancy myself in the Canaries of a winter. Here I spend a good part of every day on my manuscript – the affair at Navarino – my publisher awaits it eagerly – and where I take my refreshment too unless we dine in state – as we do this evening.’
Hervey shook his head in disbelief at what the Almighty – and his friend’s own nature – had worked. ‘I am just so very glad to see you restored so in both body and spirit.’
Peto looked pained suddenly. ‘My dear Hervey, I assure you I was never deprived of spirit. I did my duty at Navarino, and that’s everything to a man who wears the King’s coat – as well you know.’
But what Hervey had been minded of, at least in part, was his sister: withdrawing her acceptance of Peto’s offer of marriage had been the cruellest of things; as if – in what he supposed might be his friend’s own words – a man-of-war had first been dismasted, and then raked from astern. It was not a thing he could have spoken of with St Alban, but it had preoccupied him during the drive – how he might broach the matter when he was come here.
His disquiet was at once proved unwarranted. Peto straightway made sail for close action, and with the greatest breeziness. ‘Now tell me: how is your sister? Is she wed yet? Is she “Baroness”, or whatever the rank may be?’
Hervey, quite taken aback, confessed that on all three counts the answer was in the positive. They were not the answers his old friend wished to hear – that he knew only too painfully – for he was no doubt ready to renew his offer, without prejudice so to speak, had Elizabeth’s circumstances changed. And yet he detected no sign of disappointment – which he could only take as even more evidence of the resolution and courage that was characteristic of this most estimable of men.
The door opened and footmen appeared to begin the ceremony of tea. And with them came a woman of, by Hervey’s rapid reckoning, eighteen or nineteen years – certainly not yet one and twenty.
Peto’s face lit up as he advanced on their visitor and took her hand. ‘Miss Rebecca, you are come most perfectly. May I present Colonel Hervey … Hervey, Miss Rebecca Codrington.’
Hervey bowed, though momentarily arrested by the name (he couldn’t suppose she would be a Codrington of any other than the great admiral’s family, the ‘victor’ of the ‘Untoward Event’); and Rebecca Codrington curtsied.
‘I have heard much about you, Colonel, in the past few days especially,’ she said, with an openness and self-possession that belied her evident youth.
Peto felt he must explain. ‘Miss Rebecca was taking passage on my ship to join her father at Malta, but a storm carried us beyond, and so it was that she – and, I might add, a good number of other women who’d managed to keep themselves aboard – found herself in the eye of the second storm, at Navarino I mean. And did marvellous work with the surgeon on the orlop – all of them did. And she came here last summer, when she was returned with her father, and prolonged her stay; and her company, her ministrations – I’m not afraid to admit it – have wrought miracles.’
Hervey was at a loss for words. Before him was a tall, slender young woman possessed of a fine figure, pretty in a way that also suggested intelligence, and with the patent accomplishment of one who was the daughter of a vice admiral of the red and grand cross of the Bath. Why had she detained herself here? Why was she not out in society? Were the Codringtons Norfolk too? Perhaps she was an intimate of the Cholmondeleys?
But it was hardly opportune to try to ask, and so he was pleased instead to pass the time of day – indeed, to speak with some candour of his purpose in the county – as well as of old times (such as he thought appropriate for a young woman of her station – though he had to concede that she had seen battle; or, at least, the bloody consequences of it).
And then after an hour or so, when the light outside was gone, she rose and took her leave, saying she must have word with the housekeeper and the butler, and see that all was well for the party’s stay, and for their dinner this evening.
When she was gone, Peto sat back in happy contemplation, before announcing suddenly, ‘I’m resolved to return to the service, Hervey!’
‘You are? That is … splendid news,’ though he wondered how likely could be the prospect.
‘And it will be that girl’s doing if I succeed.’
Hervey began a little more to understand. But was it quite right – quite prudent – to seek the influence of a father through his daughter? In any case, was not Codrington’s star in the descendant? ‘How so, exactly?’ he tried.
‘The Duke of Clarence is no longer High Admiral, and George Cockburn is first naval lord. And while poor Rebecca’s father is made to hoist the quarantine flag, so to speak, his captains at least are regarded favourably, who were, after all, following only the orders of the commander-in-chief. Cockburn’s a most excellent fellow. I served under him in the West Indies.’
Hervey was now puzzled. If Admiral Codrington could be of no help, how could it be by his daughter’s doing that his friend would return to the service? Perhaps in some personal capacity therefore, appointed to the admiral’s suite, but still on the half-pay? Not that he could put it so directly. ‘Can you hope for a sea commission?’
Peto shook his head. ‘Port admiral.’
‘Ah. That is fitting.’
‘Hervey, my leg’s no impediment to command at sea – though an admiralty board would likely say otherwise. Nelson managed well enough with one arm. But one thing at a time: port admiral would see me up.’
‘I am all admiration.’
Peto laughed. ‘Meanwhile I am commodore of the Blakeney lifeboat!’
Hervey smiled. ‘An honorary position, I trust?’
‘I give them my advice freely.’
‘I can imagine … I am just so very, very glad to see you so well.’
‘Then tomorrow I’ll show you how well. I’ll show you my commodore’s command. Two boats – one lately acquired. And we’ll go by way of Holkham. You must see the house … and the forcing gardens. There’re glasshouses and a hypocaust you’d scarcely conceive of – fruit the long year round!’
‘I should like that very much. And in truth, I’ve yet to see the northernmost part of the county, and it’s as well that I do.’
‘Capital! Now, see here: I must go and bathe my legs in brine – my daily immersion – and then we’ll assemble for dinner at eight. I’ve asked Tom Innes and his wife to dine with us – my nearest neighbour of any account. You’ll recall my speaking of him – fellow midshipman in the West Indies. He too’s beached, though not for long, I expect. And the parson – decent sort. Your cornet seems a very good sort of man too; I look forward to his acquaintance more.’
Hervey nodded. He was sure the acquaintance would be agreeable; and in turn that St Alban would enjoy the company of Rebecca Codrington. He had served him so well these past weeks that he deserved the contemplation of one as attractive as she, and, in return, he trusted, the attention of a pair of fine eyes.
They dined in the ‘Marble Parlour’, a room of such exquisite gilding and veining that Hervey had to beg indulgence at first, so distracted was he by it. But it was not so large as to
spoil the intimacy of the little party, an assemblage got up in his honour but also for conviviality. Captain Thomas Innes, of whom Hervey had indeed heard his friend speak more than once, seemed cast in the same mould of Norfolk naval men as Peto himself, and spoke loudly and plainly. His wife wore a permanent expression of contentment, and as ‘matron of honour’ spoke graciously and with a deal of wisdom, which implied that she had not rested solely in the county when her husband had been at sea. The rector of New Houghton was agreeable enough: no great scholar, and his sermons therefore (Hervey supposed) inclined to be long; but he did know a good deal about rotation and (to Hervey’s surprise) threshing machines – and spoke with evident affection for his ‘Norfolk Horns’, having no truck with the recent fashion for putting them to Southdown rams. Rebecca Codrington herself was got up very fetchingly and à la mode, her hair arranged elaborately with a white esprit, the Apollo’s knot fastened by a diamond (or perhaps it was marcasite) comb, and her dress a light-blue gaze de Paris over a satin slip, the skirt very wide, such as he had not seen much, trimmed with blue velvet flowers, the bodice cut low but becomingly, and set off by two strings of pearls. He was always attentive to the appearance of ‘the sex’; even so, he found hers notably arresting, and was certain that St Alban would do so too.
Peto sat at the head of the table, with Mrs Innes on his right and Hervey on his left, and then, opposite each other, Rebecca and St Alban, with Thomas Innes and the rector keeping the further chairs.
The conversation was at once lively and general. Rebecca Codrington spoke charmingly, he thought, with a poise and assurance beyond her years. Plainly Cornet St Alban thought so too; yet beyond her natural courtesy she seemed to show him no special attention, her eyes returning the while to their host. And Hervey began to notice – or thought he noticed – that, indeed, Mrs Innes treated with her as if she were the hostess (though as the dutiful wife of an officer with ambition still, perhaps she thought it prudent to defer to a daughter of a vice admiral …). Yet he supposed that someone must act as mistress of the house, and since Rebecca Codrington was here – perhaps even at the behest of the Cholmondeleys for this very purpose – it was only fitting that she did so. And as if to confirm that supposition, after their excellent dinner of preserved pheasant (how much of that estimable bird he had eaten since coming to the county, even so late in the season!) and ices, it was Rebecca who rose to withdraw, and Mrs Innes who followed. And throughout, Peto showed a contentment that was rare in any man, let alone in one who had so recently been parted from the sea, the love of his life – and, indeed, from the woman who had at first pledged to being the second love.
Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) Page 22