Agar looked wary, as if Hervey might have second thoughts. ‘Sir?’
He wanted to be absolutely sure that this ‘cornet of letters’ was no chancer. ‘You were very decided in your opinion on the Sybil. Ampulla … You are certain it was the word? Or is it what you suppose it would have been, were you correct?’
Agar seemed genuinely perplexed. ‘Nam Sibyllam quidem, Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi, in ampulla pendere.1 Petronius, sir.’
Hervey was reassured. He was also doubly impressed, and not a little intrigued. ‘I don’t know of these things, yet I don’t suppose Petronius was a standard text at Oxford?’
Agar smiled (he had never dared tell his tutor what he was reading). ‘No, indeed not. But in truth, the prescribed texts were lofty in their subject and language; I wanted to learn also how and of what the unheroic Roman spoke.’
Hervey raised an eyebrow. ‘That is singular, Mr Agar. My compliments to you.’ But he wondered if this cornet took interest in the world other than from a scholarly perspective; he would not be at all surprised if his enthusiasm waned with the miles from Oxford.
Agar bowed and took his leave, and Malet and Fairbrother rejoined him.
‘What amusement your wagers book affords,’ said Fairbrother, smiling as if about to reveal a confidence. ‘Mr So-and-so wagers Mr So-and-so that the latter’s first charger cannot beat his first charger over a quarter of a mile on the flat. Mr Someone-else wagers Mr Likewise that the first issue of Caleb’s concubine Ephah was called Haran. Mr Black wagers Captain White that the Duke of Wellington will not be prime minister beyond Lady Day.’
Hervey returned the smile. ‘The hours can sometimes pass excessively slowly.’
‘I’m not sure the latter wager should have been allowed,’ said Malet, suddenly looking stern.
‘Probably not,’ agreed Hervey. ‘In any case, I think “White” is safe. There was talk at the United Service last night: even Peel’s now an emancipator. The duke will have his majority.’
‘And what a conversion that was,’ said Malet, in a tone not altogether approving (which was why ‘politics’ was a subject disallowed at mess): ‘“Orange Peel” himself prepared to sit next to a Catholic in parliament!’
Hervey nodded, equally diverted by the notion.
‘You know,’ continued Malet, his brow furrowing in a sign of more sincere wonder, ‘since Mrs Armstrong’s funeral, several dragoons have been taking instruction of the priest here.’
‘The Catholic priest?’
‘Ye-es. You don’t have objection, do you, sir?’
‘No objection, no. Merely am I taken aback by my own astonishment – if such it is. The funeral was a very singular occasion.’
‘And there’s an officer, too. Takes his instruction quite openly.’
That, perhaps, was of rather less note, if greater consequence, for there had been Catholic officers in the regiment since Hervey had been cornet (if only a couple) – and Strickland had been a most exemplary officer, too. His death had gone hard with the mess. ‘Who is he?’
‘Rennell.’
Hervey looked surprised. ‘That will go hard with his people. His father’s dean of Winchester.’
‘What a compendious knowledge you possess,’ said Fairbrother, in as much astonishment.
‘My father and he received their ordination at the same time. They visit together, in London, still.’
‘I meant of cornets not clergy.’
Hervey was momentarily abashed, but the clock on the chimney piece began chiming the half-hour. He put down his cup. ‘We must go.’
Fairbrother slept during the journey back. Hervey, for once, would have preferred to think aloud, but he could hardly chide his friend for assuming otherwise. He made himself think with system, therefore, rather than allow thoughts to come as they pleased.
Above all, there was the good news that Armstrong was set on the road to restoration. Command without his old NCO-friend would be wanting indeed; and the thought of Armstrong and his children in some orphan household would have been truly dispiriting. But the prospect was blighted by, as it were, the farrier’s axe. How could the Horse Guards – he could not bear to think that Lord Hill was himself responsible (in truth was it not the Secretary at War?) – contemplate the reduction of a regiment such as the Sixth, a regiment whose officers wagered on the prowess of their horses and discoursed on classical texts? They had stood in the order of battle since 1759; the experience of the French wars and lately of India (and his own troop at the Cape), hard won, made of them a regiment that knew its business second to none. Not one in ten of those dragoons ’listed now had heard a French cannon, he supposed, but the understanding of all who had gone before them, whether to the grave or discharge, was in some way communicated to the newest recruit, so that in but a few months a man believed himself to be not just a member of a body of veterans but a veteran himself. It did not matter if he had been but a boy at the time of Waterloo; he somehow thought of himself as truly having been there. The quill-drivers in the Treasury might scoff at it, but how otherwise to explain whence came a regiment’s élan?
Waterloo was of diminishing memory, however, Bengal and the Cape a long way away. Hervey sighed. England, he must conclude, was overgrown with peace. Had he the stomach for such a place?
1 For with my own eyes I saw the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a bottle.
VI
TOUCHES OF SWEET HARMONY
Hertfordshire, the next day
The sound of Kezia’s distant piano commanded silence as Hervey entered the panelled hall of Walden Park. The servant holding open the door bowed mutely and, taking his coat, made no enquiry after his post-horses and boy (they were, however, being attended to efficiently, he saw with a backward glance); there was no eruption of butler, housekeeper, or of any one of the family, in welcome. It was as if the morning hour – hours – of practice at the keyboard required the Great Silence of a monastery.
Hervey could not call himself a music lover. He loved the sound a band made, he enjoyed a song, and he could be entertained by an opera if its absurdity did not overcome the melody. He had never learned the fortepiano, as his sister had (and as Georgiana was learning). He would admit he knew very little; but he had recognized that Kezia’s talent both with hands and voice was of an unusual order – much greater than that of Elizabeth; much much greater. Whether or not it compared to those who earned their living thus, he could not know; but he did not suppose that Signora Colbran, whom he had heard sing in Rome, or Herr Moscheles, who played one evening at Apsley House when he dined there, could practise more.
He stood listening, not sure what to do. The music sounded not so … severe as it sometimes did. Indeed, he listened with increasing pleasure, for poor ear though some might say he had (his sister, for one), his taste was not confined, as Elizabeth teased, to marches. What Kezia played this morning was not music to dance to – or rather, he could not imagine her lowering herself to play jigs – but dance was exactly what the music invited. And it was strange, for as a rule Kezia would spend an age in scales, chords, arpeggios and all the other exercises of the keyboard which he knew of from his sister’s practice, but rarely anything to which the exercises were a prelude. It was almost as if her music were to be kept, so to speak, in a vault, to be taken out only on some special occasion, and under strict guard. He was fully conscious of the need for drill, of course – for constant practice was the foundation of execution, whether before an audience or the enemy. But to practise to exhaustion, as frequently it seemed to him was Kezia’s intent – to subdue, as it were, the keyboard, like a rough-rider with an unbroken colt – these things he could not understand. Not that their time together had been long – not at all; but it had been long enough for him to perceive that for a part of every day that they lived together they did so in what might be, to all intents and purposes, separate worlds.
He was at first reluctant to disturb her; she had ill disguised her annoyance once when he had interrupted
her playing, so that she miskeyed and had to begin again the sequence of scales, but he thought it poor form for a husband returned from months away to have to wait on a perfect cadence. He went into the music room as quietly as he might, though when Kezia looked up from the Broadwood which had been his wedding present to her, she smiled as she continued with the lively tune. It was not the smile of a Henrietta, or a Kat, but it registered a certain happiness, perhaps even pleasure.
When the music was finished – or it seemed to him that it was finished (there was a rather fine descending passage which ended with a final-sounding chord) – she smiled even broader. ‘There, Matthew, is it not the most charming piece?’
‘Charming indeed.’
‘In point of fact it is quite astonishing,’ she declared, and then frowning ever so slightly, added: ‘I had your letter last evening, but did not expect you until tomorrow.’
Hervey raised his hands as if a supplicant, but self-mocking. ‘What is the music? I shall not guess who is the composer. You would only despair of me.’
‘Rondo à la Krakowiak,’ replied Kezia, soberly, closing the sheet music with something of a flourish. ‘You can have no idea how difficult it is to play – rubato and strict rhythm at one and the same time.’
Hervey had little idea of what she spoke, but would readily concede that it sounded difficult. ‘The composer – Russian, evidently?’
‘Polish. A prodigy of but eighteen called Chopin. They say his left hand plays as a metronome while his right is all liberty. I confess I am far from mastering it myself; the syncopation is extraordinary.’
Hervey still had only the faintest comprehension, but the music plainly enlivened her – as it had him. ‘Chopin. Polish.’ He had had cause to fear the Polish lancers at Waterloo – le Régiment de Chevaux-Légers Polonais de la Garde Impériale … He would not mention it.
‘Yes, Polish,’ said Kezia, as if she was herself intrigued by the fact. ‘The Krakowiak is a peasant dance.’
‘Well, I liked it very much indeed,’ said Hervey, advancing to the piano to kiss her, which she allowed rather than welcomed, rising and gathering up the music in the same motion as the touch of lips.
‘And do you know why you like it so?’ she asked, with a sort of frown that was both playful and yet somehow disapproving.
Hervey, not allowing himself to be put off, feeling that the smile could not be wholly unconnected with his homecoming, returned it with a look of bemusement. ‘I fancy it’s rather happy music, contented peasants making merry in the fields’ (he almost said making ‘hay’).
She arched an eyebrow. ‘It is because, Colonel Hervey, the Krakowiak imitates the movement of the horse.’
‘Ah,’ he said, sounding deliberately deflated. ‘You think me minded only of horses, ma’am?’
‘Horses with dragoons astride,’ she replied, quite determined to drive home the jest – if jest it was.
But Hervey was not inclined to take offence, even mock. ‘The dragoon dismounts to do his work. The horse is merely his servant.’
‘Come now, Colonel Hervey; you think me ignorant of soldiery.’ She went to the chimney piece and gave the bell-pull a tug. ‘I am most reliably informed that nowadays a dragoon thinks himself no less a cavalryman than does a hussar. And a light dragoon was dressed as a jockey from the beginning, was he not?’
Hervey had to concede (with a polite bow) – and in some admiration, for she had taken her instruction (somewhere) well. Did it portend a zeal for becoming the colonel’s lady? He thought it improbable. Whatever the reason, however, his spirits were much lifted: here was nothing like the froideur of the days before he had left for the Cape.
But then, he was no longer contemplating a command in Canada, so disagreeable a prospect to her: his letter just before embarking for home had told of his good news, that he was after all to have command of the Sixth. There would now have to be some qualification of that news, of course, although he knew it would scarcely be of moment to her what the precise establishment of the Sixth would be: Kezia would be content if they could take a house at Hounslow in which the six-octave Broadwood might be played to advantage. Need he mention anything, now, of that dim possibility, Gibraltar?
A footman came. ‘Charles, would you bring coffee?’
She remained at the chimney piece with a hand just touching the mantel, and Hervey was as taken by her poise as he was the first time he saw her. Her self-possession was every bit as alluring as when he had observed it at Lady George (Irvine)’s dinner, when poor Strickland had been there, not so very long before the mortal smash. And in appearance she was, if anything, even more tempting. She wore a dark-green velvet dress with high, close neckline, cut generously at the shoulders but otherwise following very faithfully the curve of her breast and waist. It was irony indeed that such was called ‘undress’ – with covered arms and neck – while ‘full dress’ meant scarcely any covering at all. And yet perhaps there was method in it, since what was not shown but otherwise so expertly intimated might drive the imagination more vividly. He smiled to himself at the artifice of female fashion.
The footman left, and Hervey resumed his engagement with Kezia’s music, since it was quite evidently a happy medium for intercourse where otherwise there might be some awkwardness. ‘Are you practising for a particular occasion?’
A look of both satisfaction and keen anticipation overcame her. ‘I am to play before Herr Mendelssohn when he comes to London.’
Hervey felt suddenly and peculiarly estranged. He had heard of Mendelssohn (another young man; he had heard his music at the theatre), and if Kezia was to play before such a person then her accomplishment must be great indeed. He had not the acquaintance of a single other who could thus lay claim to talent of (he supposed) the first rank; and it gave him much cause for thought. ‘I, I am all admiration. I had not … Forgive me; it had not occurred to me that you were so well … received in your art. My ear would never be able to tell me.’ He smiled rather hopelessly.
‘It might have, my dear Matthew, had you enquired of those with an ear that could.’
‘I stand rebuked, ma’am.’
And there he did indeed stand, cuttingly rebuked and wholly at a loss for words with which to banter further, not knowing how to move the conversation to the next level, or even what that next level was, yet seeing how grotesque was the predicament in a new-wed couple.
Charles saved him prolonged anguish, however. The coffee was very fast brought, as if the servants were waiting, ready, for the end of the exercises. Hervey took his up and stood by the fireplace, wondering if he might put on another log – and troubling himself the more at his want of self-assurance. ‘Your people are well?’
‘They are very well,’ replied Kezia, stepping aside to allow the footman to attend to the fire, and taking up a thick silk shawl.
Hervey moved to help her with it, but too late, so that he had to withdraw again awkwardly. ‘They are at home?’ (The house was large enough for all to be secreted in comfort.)
‘They are in London – unseasonably so, it must be said, but my father has business in connection with the Catholic Act.’
‘Indeed?’
He was not expecting any explanation of what that business was, but Kezia took him more exactly. ‘Yes. He has written to the government to enquire how it may be that Catholics, who refuse to submit to our laws and who deny parliament’s authority over their church, might yet be admitted to parliament to make laws for the Church of England.’
Sometimes Hervey found it trying to be a Tory (even if he knew the alternative to be insupportable), and wondered how it was that the squire of Walden, albeit with the parliamentary borough in his pocket, might claim the attention of the government on this or any other matter. He fancied he knew how the Duke of Wellington would receive him, Tory or no – if he would receive him at all. ‘I recall that that was the very question which the Duke of York himself put when the bill was last before parliament.’
Kezia looke
d surprised. ‘You are well informed,’ she replied, more with curiosity than approval.
‘Well informed, but, I confess, scarcely by my own efforts. Captain Fairbrother told me of it. He takes a keen interest in affairs of state. He’s been to see Wilberforce on abolition matters.’
‘And you would support the Relief bill?’
‘If the Duke of Wellington does, I could scarcely gainsay him. Even Peel is now for it.’
Kezia smiled ironically. ‘Oh! Member for Oxford, you shuffle and wheel/ You have altered your name from R. Peel to Repeal!’
Hervey smiled too. ‘That is very droll.’
‘He’s said by one and all to have ratted on his oath of allegiance.’
‘And do you yourself believe it? I’ve always taken you to possess a broad and enquiring mind.’
Kezia put her coffee cup down on a side table and pulled her shawl closer about her shoulders. ‘I confess I have never to my knowledge met a Catholic, and so I have no prejudice in their favour or otherwise, but my father is of firm conviction in the matter.’
That seemed to be that. The conversation had taken a decidedly darker turn, and Hervey was relieved when Kezia then enquired almost breezily after his friend. ‘Where is Captain Fairbrother, by the way? Does he return with you from the Cape?’
‘He does indeed. I left him to savour the delights of London – at his own request, that is, for he had little chance before to see the sights. He’s to come with me to the East, and I hope very much to … to the regiment when I take command.’
The hesitation was not lost on her, and she looked at him quizzically enough to throw him from his stride. He had wished to choose his moment; but there could be no dissembling now.
‘I very much fear we are facing the same situation as before. Hol’ness is relinquishing command, and I am to have it, but it will likely be a hollow one, for the Horse Guards – or, rather, the War Office – is intent on reducing the regiment to a troop. Such is the parlous state of the army estimates. Lord Hill wants me to have command of his own regiment, the Fifty-third.’
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