The only other guest was a dowager Irish countess, a near-neighbour in Connaught, who had known Kat’s mother since childhood, and who now lived in semi-seclusion at Portland Place. She greeted Fairbrother with a most quizzical look, Hervey too, until after a while she appeared suddenly at ease. ‘So you are Captain Hervey.’
Hervey was puzzled; they had been introduced, and for some time – for a whole glass of champagne indeed (and Kat had distinctly pronounced his rank). ‘I am, Lady Ballindine, though in point of fact it is “Colonel”.’
‘But you were “Captain”, were you not, these many years past, when you wrote to Lady Katherine from India?’
Hervey stopped himself from clearing his throat; the Countess of Ballindine evidently knew something of their acquaintance, and he hoped she did not intend revealing all of it. ‘Yes, I was, your ladyship. I received my majority but a year ago, and acting rank at the Cape Colony.’
‘Whither he returns in but a few months, Aunt,’ explained Kat, raising her voice very slightly.
Hervey had surmised that Lady Ballindine’s hearing was faulty, but it did not entirely explain her expression of surprise. He was certain she must know of their . . . friendship.
‘And with a new wife!’ added Kat (and with exaggerated pleasure, thought Hervey).
Lady Ballindine eyed him most particularly. Hervey braced himself for an infelicitous question, but, having imperilled him in the first instant, Kat came to his aid. ‘When is the happy event to be, Colonel Hervey? Is a date resolved upon?’
Hervey swallowed hard, and hoped no one – Fairbrother especially – noticed. ‘The eighteenth of next month,’ he near-stammered, adding, for no reason he would be able to recall, ‘a Wednesday.’
‘In London?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you able to be more particular?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Hanover-square.’
‘Oh, that is most agreeable – think you not, Aunt?’ She turned to Lady Ballindine with a distinctly conspiratorial smile, and then back to Hervey. ‘I shall be returned from Warwickshire then;’ (she paused) ‘I may take it that I shall be invited?’
Hervey now saw the net into which he had so obligingly stepped. In the company of an ‘aunt’, and Fairbrother, and the conversation heavy with overtone, like a huge rain-bearing cloud threatening to burst, there was not a thing he could do but concede the game. ‘Yes, indeed, of course . . . I would deem it a true blessing were you to attend, though it will be a very small wedding.’
‘Then I shall suspend all other engagements, my dear Colonel Hervey.’
He could not but admire, even as he despaired of it, Kat’s consummate skill in persuading a man of a course he would otherwise not choose to take, yet in a way that appeared his free choice alone. And so swiftly, so deftly, before even they were sat down to dine. It was, of course, the same skill that she had exercised so well to his advantage these several years; but he had never seen it played to Kat’s own advantage at his expense. A very little expense, it was true, for Kat’s presence at Hanover Square would be no occasion for concern (except, of course, that his sister believed she knew of their association), though it might be considered faintly distasteful – Kat’s sharing a ‘secret’ with the bridegroom. He sighed inwardly: these were the consequences of the life, the unwholesome life, he had drifted into – descended into, indeed.
But it would soon be put to rights by Holy Matrimony. For, as the Prayer Book proclaimed, was it not ‘ordained as a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as may not have the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body’? And if he was not entirely certain any longer of the claims of the Church, there were some practices which were proven by time. Of course, there were other causes for which Matrimony was ordained, said the Prayer Book, and these were by no means disagreeable to him; quite the contrary, indeed – in due season. But chiefly he sought, and confidently, the promises of the remedy, not so much against sin as its wretched consequences. He sought a simpler life in ‘the honourable estate’, and a better one for the child he neglected.
And he had no doubts, none at all, that Kezia Lankester was that remedy. A delightful remedy too, in the wait for which he could barely contain himself.
XXI
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
London, 17 June 1828
Fairbrother stood winding his new hunter in the United Service’s hall. On the inside of the cover was engraved EF from MH, and he was still relishing the sentiment with which his friend had presented it to him the evening before. Hervey had spoken of the Cape, the Xhosa and the Zulu, of his gratitude for Fairbrother’s ‘singularly faithful and adroit service in the most dangerous of circumstances’; and most of all for his ‘companionship these latter months . . . forbearance and good counsel, support and . . . friendship’ which he confessed he had not imagined he would see so manifest again in any but Peto or Somervile. And now he, Fairbrother, waited, unusually, on his friend, who was invariably in advance of him. He was, however, early upon his hour; but he had business with Hervey’s tailor – a new coat, the final fitting for which had been most promising. He wished it done before midday, after which the two were to dine early with Hervey’s parents, and with Elizabeth and Georgiana, at Grillon’s Hotel in Piccadilly, where they were lodging, having arrived in the afternoon of the day before in a glass landau lent by the Marquess of Bath.
‘Forgive me; I had a letter for the agents,’ said Hervey, come at last.
‘It was an agreeable wait; I saw Lord Hill.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Was presented to him.’
‘How so?’
‘Your friend Howard. They are breakfasting now.’
Hervey hoped that whatever the deliberations were, they would not inconvenience Lord John Howard, who was to stand supporter at Hanover Square in the morning. ‘Well and good. Let us go to Gieve’s together, then.’ It was but the shortest of walks: he would in truth have preferred to take a turn about the park, but he had arranged to call at Russell Square with Georgiana at ten-thirty, and it was already twenty after nine. ‘You are certain there is nothing more I can do regarding Devon?’
Fairbrother had written to his father before leaving the Cape, informing him of his sojourn in England, and his father had secured an invitation to visit the relicts of his family in the West Country. He was at once delighted and apprehensive, but he had been determined to detach himself from his friend – and his friend’s new wife – for a decent period following the wedding. ‘Everything is arranged: the mail to Exeter, and from there I shall be conveyed to Crediton by my aunt’s carriage.’
‘I must hope you will not be too pleasantly detained there: I shall count on your arriving at Walden on the fifteenth.’
‘On the ides proximo: depend upon it.’
‘I shall. And . . . may I say again, my good friend, how prodigiously grateful I am that you will escort my people tomorrow.’
‘There is no cause for gratitude. I am honoured.’
But there was most particular cause. Hervey knew full well that Elizabeth wished Baron Heinrici to be invited, for, as she had insisted ‘he is soon to be your brother-inlaw, Matthew’. The idea was, however, unsupportable. He had no clear notion of what had passed between Elizabeth and Peto at Greenwich, but he was certain yet that she would come to her senses before it was too late. Which was why he must make sure there was no impediment to her doing so, and Heinrici’s attending at Hanover Square would undoubtedly be such an impediment. Fairbrother had, without doubt, been the very model of tact in this: Hervey knew that he owed much to the good offices of his friend in ensuring sufficient harmony for the wedding to be celebrated with all due decorum . . . and happiness. He squeezed Fairbrother’s arm.
* * *
The Hervey family was, indeed, much engaged this morning. The archdeacon was to call on his old Oxford friend (and as sometime vicar of Bradford Peverell, fellow Sarum pr
iest), the Bishop of London. Dr Howley was soon to be translated to Canterbury, and Archdeacon Hervey wished to present him with a copy of his new-published (at last) monograph on Laudian decorum, as well as his felicitations. Mrs Hervey was still of a mind that such a thing was perilous: ten years before, her husband had been threatened with the consistory court on account of ‘popish practices’, and she saw no occasion for raising suspicions once more. She had decided to forgo accompanying the archdeacon to Aldersgate on account of the necessity of finding a milliner selling ribbon appropriate to her needs, for which neither Warminster nor even Bath had apparently been satisfactory. Elizabeth had her own calls to pay. And so Hervey was able to take his daughter from their charge with universal contentment.
‘I thought that we would walk,’ he said as they left Grillon’s. ‘It’s a fine morning, and but a mile or so to our destination.’
‘Oh yes, Papa,’ replied Georgiana, taking his hand. ‘I would see all there is to see!’ It was her first time in London proper. ‘Where do we go?’
He had thought carefully how he might broach the matter. He did not know quite why he was so determined that she should see the painting before the wedding, before she would have a new mother (have a mother, indeed, for she had never known one). It was, he supposed, some sort of desire for – as Kezia herself might put it – an appropriate ‘cadence’.
They crossed Piccadilly at a brisk walk, Hervey tipping the sweeper a penny, thence propelling Georgiana to his left, inside, hand. ‘We are going to see a portrait of your late mama. It was begun before you were born, and I learned of it but a month ago. It is by Sir Thomas Lawrence, who is a very great painter.’
‘Oh Papa! Have you seen it? Is it like her?’
He felt Georgiana’s hand squeeze his, and knew the keenest relief at her evident joy. ‘I have, and it is the very image of her, just as she was before . . . before we were wed.’
Georgiana bubbled with questions – how large was the portrait, where had it been all these years, what did her mother wear, did she stand or sit? And then, as if the thought came suddenly to her, she paused for a moment, and her voice changed. ‘But Papa, does it make you sad to see her?’
He had never imagined such a question of her, for he had never imagined her grown to such sensibility. It fair took him aback, and he was momentarily at a loss to make any reply. ‘I am very glad that it is discovered,’ he said, resolutely.
Georgiana knew that her father’s answer was an evasion of sorts, but she would not press him, for the evasion answered for itself.
When they arrived at Russell Square – it took them all of three-quarters of an hour to get there through the throng of pedestrians, drovers and carriages in Soho – they were received by a footman with whom Hervey had become almost familiar. He took them at once to the viewing room, where the canvas stood upon an easel, and then withdrew.
Georgiana advanced on the portrait in silence, and cautiously, as if she were to be presented. She gazed only at the face, and for a long while. Hervey stood back, not wishing in any way to influence her reaction, hoping, indeed, that she might forget he were there, so that he might see her true opinion, and not merely of the portraitist but of his subject.
‘She has a very kind face,’ said Georgiana at length, admiringly. ‘And she looks very happy.’
Hervey had observed the same: all was revealed in the eyes, which sparkled exactly as he remembered. ‘Indeed. We were engaged to be married.’
‘And she is very beautiful.’
‘She is.’ He caught himself echoing Georgiana’s present tense, and resolved to correct it as he elaborated: ‘She was as beautiful as any I ever saw.’
Another long silence followed, in which Georgiana examined every aspect of the painting. And then she stepped back, as if to take in the whole once more. ‘But Lady Lankester is very beautiful too.’
Hervey swallowed. Georgiana’s capacity to surprise was disconcerting. ‘Indeed.’
She took two more paces back, and towards him. ‘And Lady Lankester is now to take Mama’s place. Aunt Elizabeth says that I am very fortunate to have such a mother.’
Hervey cleared his throat. ‘Fortunate . . . yes. But deserving also.’
‘What does Aunt Elizabeth think of the painting, Papa?’
Hervey’s insides twisted in the peculiar way they did when he was suddenly confronted with some dereliction: he had not even thought to tell Elizabeth of it, let alone to have her see it – and Henrietta had been her best friend. ‘I . . . I believe I wanted you to know of it first,’ he said, hopefully.
‘And Lady Lankester, does she know of it? Shall it come with us to Africa?’
‘I’m not yet resolved on that, my dear. It is, as I said, barely a month since I myself was first acquainted with the painting.’
‘I hope it does not make you sad, Papa. I know, of course, that I cannot feel the same as do you, because I never knew Mama, but we are now to begin a new life, are we not? We shall be together for the first time! I wish Aunt Elizabeth could be with us, but she will have her own family, new, just as ours. I hope she will be as happy as we shall be.’
Hervey was rendered speechless once more: he could not have spoken even if he had known what to say. ‘This is eloquence’, he marvelled, somewhere in his mind, echo of something he had read years ago and had forgotten what or where. This is eloquence. For Henrietta could be no more, and neither could their love, for ever now unrequited. Never could there be such love again. Yet be some sort of love there must – ay, and with it its compensations. For his family’s sake; for his own. Else he would find himself again as he was in that cell at Badajoz . . .
Presently, seeing Georgiana looking at him and not the painting, he took her hand, smiled at her, and led her from the room, unhurriedly but without speaking. Perhaps, now, the ghost was laid to rest. He could not quite tell what or how, but there was a change . . . Curiously, and possibly for the first time, he felt altogether composed for what the morning – the rest of his life – promised. He was, indeed, at peace.
XXII
AN HONOURABLE ESTATE
Next morning, Waterloo Day, 1828
The wedding was an altogether smaller affair than had been the first nuptials of either Hervey or Kezia.
Eleven years earlier, in May 1817, Captain Matthew Hervey and Lady Henrietta Lindsay, ward of the Marquess of Bath, had been joined in stately matrimony at Longleat House amid resplendent uniforms, the regimental band and a guard of honour formed by the non-commissioned officers. And but three years ago, Kezia, only daughter of Sir Delaval Rumsey, Bart, and of Lady Rumsey, and Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ivo Lankester, Bart, had been joined in very county matrimony at Walden in Hertfordshire, the families of that and the neighbouring shires joining in the grandest of wedding breakfasts at Walden Park.
This morning, however, at St George’s church in Hanover Square, there was not a uniform to be seen, and the music was the organ’s, though a rather grand instrument on which Handel himself had played (the organist this morning played sober glees). Indeed, to Hervey’s taste, the whole church was rather too austere, singularly lacking in ornament except for the gilded names of rectors and churchwardens on the panels of the gallery, and a reredos-painting of the Last Supper, which he thought very dull compared with those he had seen in Rome. It was, however, not an unhappy interior: the late-morning sun streamed through the brilliant plain glass of the Venetian window above, and there were flowers, fashionable hats and silks.
There was an equal number, a dozen or so, on either side of the nave, some standing, some sitting in the high box pews – Hervey’s immediate family and brother officers, including Lord Holderness, and some of Kezia’s family and friends, from both town and country. Georgiana wore dark blue, and yellow ribbons, the only touch of regimental colour among the congregation (Elizabeth had taken some pains with the millinery), for even Private Johnson wore plain clothes. And there was Kat, in a turban and a magnificent pelisse of green silk, a beauty
to turn every head, male and female.
If only Peto had been there – whole or in his invalid state, and Elizabeth at his side . . . Hervey, standing with Lord John Howard between the soaring Corinthian columns at the top of St George’s elegant steps, greeting the guests as they arrived, could not give up the idea of a reconciliation, even now. The thought of his friend’s lonely return to Norfolk, the inevitable if gradual rejection by society (for a man with such disfigurement, even with a Bath Star at his breast, could be no adornment to their pretty world) . . . this saddest of thoughts exercised him more each day. Indeed there were moments when he did not think he could return to the Cape, leaving his old friend thus.
As the appointed hour approached, Hervey and Lord John Howard took their places at the front of the nave. And soon after eleven o’clock, Kezia, on the arm of her father, with her attendant, a married cousin, began her decorous procession towards the chancel, the organ accompanying them with something Hervey did not recognize, nor hardly even notice. They had spoken little of the arrangements, for he had understood the difficulty, perhaps, of the undertaking: his own wedding, notwithstanding its bitter-sweet memories, was some time past, whereas Kezia’s must yet be vivid in her mind’s eye, and that of her family (although it had lately occurred to him how similar were their circumstances, each having lost a marriage partner, violently and within a year of being wed, and each with a child made at once unknowledgeable of a parent). He turned to glimpse his bride.
Kezia’s appearance was indeed arresting. She wore a dress of levantine, narrow coral stripes on cream, lowwaisted as was the fashion, the skirt spread full at the hem; and in her hair were flowers and ribbons above a lace cap. If he had been capable of admitting it, he would have owned that her appearance was in truth as pleasing to him as that of his first bride. And a curious triumphing sense overcame him, a strange notion that there advanced on him Lady Lankester, the widowed wife of a regimental hero, himself the brother of a fallen paragon, and that she would retire as Mrs Matthew Hervey . . . He could not explain it (or if he could he would not wish to), but it was as if he crossed a threshold, perhaps one that he had not before even recognized. It thrilled and invigorated him to a remarkable degree. And he wished devoutly – no, irreverently – for its consummation.
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