They stayed perhaps overlong with the port, but Captain Innes was intent on a complicated story about Peto’s prowess with the gun in the forests of Darien, which in turn prompted a lengthy reminiscence – not entirely without bearing on their ‘Darien expedition’ (and certainly not dull) – on the relative attractions of each of the Windward Islands, of which there seemed to be principally five (after a dispute as to whether Dominica was not more correctly in the Leewards), and then the many smaller islands of the Grenadines, all of which too seemed to have their distinctive charms, so as to make Hervey quite envious of their acquaintance with those parts, and only wondering if Fairbrother, were he here, might trump them all with some tale of those other Indies.
And so, as they rejoined the ladies, Peto felt that some apology was due, which he made with great enthusiasm, bringing the sweetest of smiles from Rebecca, and from Mrs Innes the assurance that she knew from many years’ familiarity with the Windwards – if only anecdotally – that their charms were too many to be lightly dealt with. But cards had been promised, and cards they therefore played, though the hour was late (the rectory was only a short walk, and the Inneses lived barely three miles away).
It was half past midnight when the guests left, and Rebecca too – and in turn St Alban – leaving the two friends together in Peto’s parlour for one last glass of his own excellent brandy.
‘What a capital evening, Hervey. I never enjoyed myself more.’
He said it as if he truly meant it. Hervey wondered, for he had always had a very clear understanding of his friend’s notion of pleasure, and it certainly did not consist in dinner parties and cards. A good dinner in his cabin with a few of his officers was all he’d craved – a simple ‘Welsh venison’ pudding, with redcurrant jelly and cussy sauce (how well he recalled those evenings aboard Nisus, and his own nescience: ‘Know you not that prime eight-tooth mutton – wether mutton – fuddled and rubbed with allspice and claret, can be ate with as much satisfaction as the King’s own fallow deer?’). And yet here was no man dwelling in, or even much conscious of, his disappointment in love and war – the loss of his affianced and the loss of his command; but rather a man at peace.
And, laying aside the loss of an arm – his right arm – and the mauling of a leg, his old friend had never looked better. The livid scar across the forehead was no more now than a line of character, of experience. His hair was full and brown, and his form that of a lieutenant, not a captain ashore and given to indulgence. His eyes were bright and his mind was active. Indeed, he himself felt poorly in Peto’s light.
‘Yon parson’s a good man, Hervey, ’case you didn’t have opportunity to form the opinion for yourself. Visited me every day when I was first come here. And he can preach a soul-stirring sermon.’
Hervey helped himself to more brandy, and gave his friend a challenging smile. ‘I recall you were not very partial to the claims of the church.’
Peto smiled back benignly. ‘No man who goes to sea is mindless of his Maker, Hervey. Rather had I found that it was His ministers who were too often mindless. But that’s now in the past. I declare I’m as observant a congregant as ever my father would have wished.’
Hervey wondered if that were not also in part Rebecca Codrington’s doing, for he imagined that she like many a young lady brought up ‘well’ (and here he held in his mind a momentary image of Kezia at divine worship) was ardent in her faith. But he would not say so.
‘And Tom Innes – oh, what hours we’ve had here recalling simpler times!’
‘I can well see your attachment to Houghton.’
‘I’ll bide my time here – Cholmondeley insists on it; says it keeps the house warm when he’s away so much. Excellent young man, excellent – and then when … when things are opportune, I’ll move into my house. I’m having it much pulled about, mind. We might drive there on our way to Holkham.’
And before Hervey could make any reply, his friend, as if summoned by the bell at the hand of the bosun’s mate, got up with remarkable haste and pronounced himself ready for his bed. ‘Forgive me, Hervey: I don’t tire as a rule, but nor have I been more animated in months by the prospect of what beckons tomorrow – Holkham and Blakeney. Believe me, we shall see such things!’
‘Indeed,’ said Hervey simply, moved by the manifest delight. ‘Indeed.’
XIV
CROSSING THE BAR
Next day
‘The wind’s got up strong,’ said Peto, announcing himself to the breakfast party. ‘Backed five points since last light – north nor-east, and freshening by the minute. Near gale by the midday, I’ll warrant.’
‘Good morning, Peto – or do I say “Beaufort”?’ replied Hervey drily but with a distinct smile. ‘Shall we have more snow?’
‘The glass is falling.’
Hervey took it to mean that snow could be expected. ‘That does not interfere with our plans?’
‘Not in the least,’ replied Peto emphatically, ‘though perhaps we might set out sooner – and take the tour of the house here tomorrow instead.’
Hervey nodded.
‘And St Alban – you’ll not mind bringing the horses back from Holkham?’
‘Not in the least, Sir Laughton.’
‘Coke’s people’ll give us horses as far as Blakeney, then we’ll hire to Fakenham and a man from here can bring a change to meet us.’
‘Admirable,’ said Hervey, helping himself to more coffee. ‘What is it from Holkham to Blakeney – ten miles?’
‘Ten exactly, and twenty thence back here. Pity that Coke’s away – parliament and all, but his housekeeper will show us the place. Such marvels.’
The weather being so inauspicious, they took the precaution of a particularly hearty breakfast, and the ham was then wrapped for the excursion.
Corporal Wakefield brought the regimental chariot into the arcade just before nine, and Rebecca Codrington saw them off with smiles and words of envy – and a good deal of solicitude for her ‘patient’. Hervey was again much taken by her frankness. She evidently took pleasure, too, in nursing his old friend. Such a restoration of body and mind there had been; and he was sure that Peto spoke only the truth when he attributed it to her ministration – though without uncommon fortitude on his part, no amount of admirable nursing could have wrought such a change.
The Houghton horses – four of them – were fine roadsters, and with one of the Houghton grooms as guide Wakefield took them in a good trot the seven miles to South Creake – Peto’s father’s old parish. Here they inspected the improvements being made to what had once been the glebe house, which Commander Peto had bought some years before but then neglected willingly to be at sea, but which was now to become the worthy seat of Captain – perhaps even Rear Admiral – Sir Laughton Peto.
There was snow on the ground here still, making it difficult for Hervey to appreciate fully the foundations for the new wing, and although there was no sign of masons and bricklayers outside, there were carpenters within. He knew nothing of these things, but thought it unlikely that the work would be complete before the autumn – if, indeed, the winter. Nor could he fail to appreciate how painful such a visit was for his old friend, who ought by rights to be showing him the house in which his sister was to be installed as mistress. He knew he must say something.
They did not tarry, however.
‘Deuced fine bricks, those,’ said Peto as they got under way again. ‘Better than Houghton’s even – much.’
‘So I observed,’ replied Hervey, if not entirely truthfully, thinking instead how best to broach the matter of Elizabeth.
‘Those carpenters – best in Norfolk. I know a thing or two about carpentry.’
‘Indeed.’
‘You observed that oak?’
‘I did.’
‘From the old Acis, broken up at Yarmouth last year.’
Hervey could not but indulge his old friend’s enthusiasm for the detail of his building, especially when it was so intimately connected with his l
ate profession – indeed, his soon-to-be-resumed profession (pray that it would be so). Yet he could not avoid mention of Elizabeth for ever …
‘And stored at Houghton is some of the best Baltic pine you’ll ever see – bought at Linn from a Bremen trader.’
‘Peto, I—’
‘Nothing shall be too good for her.’
Hervey thought he’d misheard – or perhaps the house, as his ship, was feminine.
‘Good for her?’
‘Indeed.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow. For whom?’
‘Miss Codrington, of course. We shall be wed late this year.’
Hervey’s jaw dropped. ‘Wed? This year?’
‘She wished to be wed at once, but I believed it right to wait till she’s eighteen.’
‘But …’
Peto continued blithely, yet well knowing what must be the multitude of his friend’s thoughts. ‘You see, it was she who knelt beside me that day on the orlop – and before me, the other mangled souls brought below … Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’
‘Why, I … Yes, of course. I heartily congratulate you.’
‘I suppose you think the disparity of age somewhat extreme? But it was the same with the Duke of York – I mean the Stuart, James – when he took the Italian girl at fifteen, and he forty, and by all accounts they were unconscionably happy. And he a sailor, too.’
Hervey was at a loss for words. ‘I …’
‘Certainly it’s greater than with your own good wife, but not excessively. And, you know, the Turk may have taken my right arm, but he didn’t unman me.’
Hervey felt the blow to his stomach as surely as if it had been real. In what melancholy contrast did his own situation stand with his friend’s new-found and wholly deserved content – and yet here was Peto supposing it was his equal. There was nothing more he could say.
Holkham, ten miles distant, was a most welcome diversion. Peto had talked for an hour about his bride-to-be, his house, his prospects; his happiness seemed to know no bounds – and Hervey felt meanly for his own envy of it.
And then as they turned off the road onto the long, straight avenue towards the house, the voice became suddenly confiding. ‘My dear Hervey, I’ve spoken of myself incessantly since your coming to Houghton. I’ve not once asked how things are with you, and I hope you’ll not think ill of me for it, for I fancied you’d speak when the time came.’
Hervey was uneasy. Had his friend some intimation of how things were between him and Kezia? But how might he have? He himself was hardly aware of how things truly stood. Perhaps he had in mind his command? ‘Well, I …’
‘No matter,’ said Peto, waving his hand airily. ‘When the time comes.’
‘Of course … of course.’
They passed peacefully between the gatekeeper’s lodges, though Hervey felt the stomach pangs still.
‘Now, what think you of this!’ demanded his old friend, signalling a determined change of tack.
Hervey was only too pleased to conform. He gazed out of the window again, observing the straightest avenue of trees he’d ever seen – though all bending exceedingly – and the horses leaning hard into the climb. ‘It is very fine, I grant you. And Mr Coke appears to have found the highest hill in Norfolk – or perhaps had it made.’
‘Wait till you have the prospect from the top – see yon high obelisk?’
He did.
‘From there you’ll have the fairest view of house and sea. There’s nothing it’s like!’
And Hervey would soon agree. On a fine day of a summer there could be no more pleasing thing than to walk up to this place and survey the builder’s and the gardener’s art, and, beyond, that of Nature – God’s: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is – though on this lion day of March the sea, distant as it was, looked angry, and the sky ominous.
Then down the hill they went, into the wind. A precautious coachman would have taken it at a walk, with the brake on perhaps, fearful of the coming gale, but Corporal Wakefield kept the four in a trot – better to make them work than risk the wind taking hold, like oars pulling to gain steerage in a fast stream – until finally, in the lee of the house, he could slow to a walk and make his approach at a proper, respectful speed.
The housekeeper was waiting with coffee and madeira. She seemed to know Peto well – perhaps from long years, for she was evidently a Norfolk woman and Hervey knew they kept their own society in this part of the county – and showed no wonder at his coming, or made remark as to his condition, so that he concluded that his friend was indeed much about the place, and much at home in being so.
They began their tour with a coup d’éclat – the marble hall, ‘Though it is chiefly of pink alabaster, from Derbyshire,’ explained Mrs Gedge. ‘And it was modelled by Mr William Kent on a Roman basilica.’
Hervey nodded. The likeness to the dome of the Pantheon was most striking.
‘The hall is more than fifty feet from floor to the ceiling,’ she continued, ‘and atop the stairs, which are of true marble, is the peristyle of Ionic columns.’
She was very practised as cicerone, he noted, and plainly delighting in her task.
‘The colonnade is copied from that of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome, and supports the coffered ceiling, which is inspired by the Pantheon.’
He was greatly pleased by this evidence of his own artistic appreciation, which as a rule his sister was all too ready to deride. He was about to ask Peto if he could recall their visit to the Pantheon ten years before, but remembered that Elizabeth had been with them too, and so thought better of it.
Up the white marble steps they walked (Peto with quite remarkable ease), to even more intimations of Rome: ‘In the niches of the peristyle are statues of classical deities’ – all familiar to him: Apollo, Flora, Bacchus, Isis, Aphrodite, Hermes; but the saint … Susanna perhaps? Or Felicity or Perpetua – one of the Roman martyrs, plainly; and a nude youth of the sort that abounded on the Capitoline. How these Whigs loved to imagine themselves as classicals!
And on through the piano nobile – the saloon, the statue gallery (whose pieces were clad for much warmer climes, or not at all, though Mrs Gedge showed no concern), the long library, the dining room … Paintings, furniture, sculpture of every sort, the bounty of the Grand Tour brought back to the northern shore of the county of the Iceni – they who had once burned the Romans out of Colchester, St Albans and even London.
An hour they walked and looked and questioned and remarked, and Hervey began truly to imagine how his friend could be content in the mere proximity of such a place as this, even in a house ‘good only for a curate’ – if extended to more gentlemanlike proportions …
But for Peto himself, even in the midst of Palladian splendour and the Green State Bedroom, came the call of the sea. ‘We must sheer away,’ he pronounced suddenly, recalling Hervey from his close contemplation of a particularly vivid oil of Jupiter Caressing Juno. ‘We must see Blakeney with daylight aplenty – the harbour there, my new boat, the church and all. But before we go, the great wall of the kitchen garden – I would have you see that. I would wish your opinion.’
Hervey counted himself no greater gardener than he was a builder, but was perfectly content to humour his friend. They therefore gave thanks, and generous coin, to Mrs Gedge, and went by way of the servants’ hall to the gardens.
‘See! See!’ cried Peto, as they rounded the corner.
But Hervey was at a loss to perceive anything but a wall – admittedly a very high wall, higher perhaps than he’d seen. ‘What is it that I’m to look for?’
‘There, Hervey! Mark that edifice.’
He looked at the object of his friend’s enthusiasm with some puzzlement. ‘As serviceable a wall as ever I saw.’
‘Ah, but not merely a wall,’ said Peto, warming to his subject ever more keenly. ‘In the summer a veritable cornucopia – pears, apples, succulents of all sorts. You mark its thicknes
s?’
Hervey was perhaps used to seeing a wall as first and foremost an obstacle to surmount – to breach, preferably, or to scale. Peto’s, or rather, Holkham’s, was a full twenty feet – as high as those at Badajoz (what an escalade that had been), and at Bhurtpore, whose breach he’d climbed through when the sappers had done their job of tunnelling and exploding. But a wall for fruit …
‘It is a wall of walls, I grant you. Enough to make Joshua himself tremble.’
‘You see, Hervey, were we to come here in spring there would be half a dozen and more columns of smoke, like so many engines getting up steam – like Chatham yard. All from the stoves fitted to the wall as soon as the first fruits appear, just like an antique Roman floor, to keep them from the frosts. And this wall I shall build in my own garden, or rather, a smaller of its type – a frigate to a first-rate. And Miss Codrington shall have fruit as early and often as any in this fair county!’
Hervey smiled. His old friend’s fervour was that of a man half his years – the fervour he himself could still, occasionally, recall. Was it apt, engendered by a fascination with a girl less than half his age (‘fascination’ was, no doubt, unfair; ‘gratitude’, perhaps)? Who should say? Was it transient? Who could say?
‘Miss Rebecca Codrington is the most fortunate of young ladies.’
Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) Page 23