Chapter 9
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Royce. The man made it abundantly clear that he has no intention of accepting my commission into the brigade that he refers to as his very own. Indian reg is what he called me. Don’t speak to me of India, he shouted.” Stirling shrugged. “Maybe it might be best if I join the 17th Lancers. They, too, are a noble bunch,” he said, walking next to his friend.
“Nonsense, I have spoken to his lordship and he has decided to give you a chance.”
Royce stopped walking and moved closer to his old friend.
“I did mention that little problem of yours concerning your father and brothers. I think that’s what tipped his lordship over in the end – we will see – now, come along. We don’t want to keep the man waiting lest his face adopt an even redder hue.”
Chuckling, the two men walked down the wide corridor in the Horse Guards Building, the vast Palladian style structure between Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade in London. It had only recently finished construction and stood proudly facing the Mall and Buckingham Palace. They headed for Cardigan’s office. Usually, he would be at the regimental headquarters in Kent, but due to all of the turmoil concerning the war with Russia, all of the action was taking place in the city.
They soon reached a large foyer with a single double door. Two heavy mahogany desks stood in front of it; the crisply turned out officers sitting there promptly stood to attention in Royce’s presence.
“Is the earl ready for us, gentlemen? Please inform his lordship that Captain Ryder is here with Lord Stirling Whitt Whittaker.”
“Sir,” shouted both of the men.
“Gentlemen, really, there is absolutely no need to shout. I am standing right here,” said Royce, chuckling.
“Of course, sir. But his lordship likes to hear his men confirm an order. It has become a bit of a habit I’m afraid. I hazard that the earl is getting a little deaf as the years claim him,” stuttered the auburn-haired adjutant with the rosy cheeks with freckles on them. Like his colleague, he was impeccably turned out in the regimental uniform of the Cherrybum.
“I heard that, Faulkner. Be so kind as to stop discussing my physical ailments with men who have absolutely no business in knowing them. It just wouldn’t do if they thought me unfit for command.”
Cardigan stood stiff as an arrow in the double doorway to his office suite. Stirling and Royce could only make out his silhouette in the frame that was lit by the sun shining through the large windows in the back. They could see the dust hanging in the air, confirming that this was a place that was rarely dusted, or maybe it was due to the recent construction work. His two secretaries exchanged nervous glances.
“My Lord, it would be a pleasure and an honour to serve with such an able and accomplished commander,” said Royce, trying to lighten the mood.
“Indeed, it would. Who is that man with you, sir? You dare bring a civilian here!” barked the earl. As his words shot out of his mouth, the two adjutants appeared to shrink under their desks.
“This is Lord Stirling Whitt Whittaker, My Lord.”
Cardigan frowned. “Ah, yes, the Indian reg. Bring him in. I would like to have a chat with him.”
“Of course, My Lord.” Royce indicated with his head to his friend that they follow the aristocrat into his office.
Stirling shrugged. What had he to lose? Only the day before, his long-time friend had found him wallowing in self-pity in his squalid and dilapidated dwelling like a pig would in its sty. His hair had been long and unkempt; he had had a beard of equal slovenliness with the added allure of bits of vomit sticking to it, and the colour of his skin had been sallow and sickly. The last two attributes still lingered, but were nothing that a good ride on his horse, Cloud, could not get rid of.
Now, he was once more a man that could pass himself off as a gentleman, and if fortune were so inclined, once again an officer in her majesty’s army.
Stirling’s attire was meticulous in its presentation: tight breeches cut to a shadow, a well-cut dark coat, and a white chemise under a maroon double-breasted waistcoat and tall, black equestrian boots defined him.
He held his frame proud and taut, like Cartwright, his father’s chief steward and old military comrade from their times serving the Duke of Wellington, had taught him. Cartwright was a military man through and through. It was because of the kindly man with the temper of a hurricane that Stirling had decided to join the army.
Stepping into the spacious room, he could not help but marvel at the frugality of it. He expected the earl to have had the entire place refurbished to his specifications. On the back wall, there was a portrait of the Duke of Wellington. Close to the earl’s heavy mahogany desk hung a portrait of her majesty, the Queen Victoria. It appeared that she looked down onto her subjects with steely resolve, reminding them that they were a part of the greatest empire the world had ever seen – an empire upon which the sun never set.
With a grunt, the earl lowered his weight. “So, you want to be a Cherrybum, young man – why?” Cardigan shifted his bulk in the heavily upholstered chair as his steely blue eyes drilled into Stirling.
Stirling took a moment to collect his thoughts. He still suffered from the after-effects of too much drink. Sweat seeped out of the pores of his skin, sliding down his back. He looked at Cardigan who appeared rather laidback for his standards.
His tunic coat hung over the shoulder of his chair, leaving the earl in his white shirt, braces, breeches and the outrageously tight whalebone corset underneath. Stirling imagined that it must take the better part of an hour to squeeze the earl into it so that he looked as lean and trim as he did.
“Well, man. Cat got your tongue,” snapped Cardigan.
“Sorry, My Lord. I was just admiring the portrait of her majesty. I think that it caught her in just the right light…if I may say so and be so bold, My Lord.” It was the first thing that came to his mind. He bowed his head slightly as if the queen were in the room.
Cardigan straightened his posture even more. It looked like his corset was going to burst. “Ryder, fetch us a round of the tipple. Make it champagne. I prefer it in the mornings.”
Royce arched his eyebrows. The entire expression on his face radiated hope. “Do we have something to celebrate, My Lord?”
“CELEBRATE! Just get on with it, man. Does one need to have a reason to drink champagne? What a preposterous notion. The French bathe in the stuff,” yelled Cardigan.
“Sir…My Lord!” Royce scuttled off in the direction of the ice-filled wine cooler on a marquetry mantelpiece that had obviously been placed there in preparation for one of the earl’s caprices.
Stirling felt his stomach lurch. The gin he had drunk the night before still swirled inside of him like a vortex of poisonous vapour. After having received the package from Royce, he had decided to drown his sorrows with even more cheap liquor. It had been a bad decision. Only his sharp resolve had hauled him out of bed that morning.
“So, you have met her majesty, have you?” asked the earl snappishly.
Stirling took a moment to steady the acidic bile, threatening to rise up his throat.
POP!
The sound of the advent of more alcohol almost made him lose that vital battle. He nodded his head lightly. “Yes, My Lord. I had the pleasure of meeting the queen. My father…”
“Don’t speak to me of that man. He is a “commerciante” and a peddler of wares, mantled in the fine veil of a dukedom.” The earl shook his head in frustration. “Such fine lineage thrown into the gutter for the vulgar pursuance of wealth. By God, boy, when your brother inherits the title, it will be even worse. I hear that he runs these sordid family affairs of yours and comports himself like a Jew.”
Stirling did not know what to make of the situation. In essence, his honour had been tarnished by the earl and he was duty and family bound to demand satisfaction. His line of thinking was briefly interrupted when Royce handed him a flute filled to the brim with champagne.
“Ex
cellent, Captain. Just how I like it – nice and full. I propose a toast…”
Stirling felt his breath stick to his throat and his heart beat faster. The expression on his face collapsed into one of aggression. He made to take a step forward. Royce’s hand stopped him.
He turned to see his friend shaking his head softly. They did not need words. His meaning was apparent: don’t mess this up; your brothers and father are not worth it. With reluctance, Stirling quietened himself, and waited for the earl to finish his toast.
“…To welcoming Major Stirling Whitt Whittaker into the 11th Hussars with immediate effect. I look forward to having you amongst us, young man.” Cardigan wanted to say more, but he couldn’t refrain from taking an overly large swig of the champagne, nearly draining the glass in the process.
The others followed suit. Where Royce nipped elegantly, Stirling copied his new commanding officer down to a tee. The effervescent golden liquid seemed to wrap him around its finger – as if it were a magic potion, it gave him strength that in moments cleared his mind and freed his body from the perspiration. He looked up to see that the champagne had had the same effect on Cardigan who growled at Royce to fetch the bottle.
“A major, My Lord. Tis more than I expected,” said Stirling.
“A man with your skills must be accorded a position suitable of his ability.” The earl pleated his brow. “Show me,” he barked.
Stirling arched his eyebrows. “Show you, My Lord?”
“Don’t play coy with me, sir. I know you have them…show them…NOW! I tell you.”
The hue on the earl’s face went a darker shade of burgundy. Stirling was confused. He did not know as to what he was referring to.
“The feathers, you fool. Show him the package with the feathers I brought you the other day,” said Royce, refilling his flute.
“Oh, the feathers, My Lord. I was not aware that you knew about them.” Royce stepped forward while he rummaged in his coat pocket. He handed the package to the earl.
“Not aware? What do you take me for? Some ignorant fool who plays soldiers – give that here,” he said, snatching the little white box.
The force of his grip made the white feathers tumble out of the loosely open box and fall in a swirl of fluffy plumage onto the blotter on his desk. Everyone present stared at them as if they were some evil spirit from the underworld.
For over a hundred years, the white feather denoted cowardice in the British Empire. If one was ever unfortunate enough to be the recipient of one, let alone three, it was nigh impossible to wipe that dark tarnish off one’s character. Like the rings in the trunk of a tree, the white feather of cowardice stayed with a man for as long as he lived and much longer thereafter.
“Oh, my. So, it is true. These are from your father and brothers?” asked the earl, looking up at Stirling. His habitually arrogant visage had adopted the mien of a man who felt compassion.
Stirling nodded. “Yes, My Lord. They are from my family.”
Cardigan’s face appeared to dissolve into itself. A deep frown creased his brow. His lips curled into a feral snarl as his body began to vibrate.
“Those people will take them back, I say. How dare they lumber a man with such shame for following his father’s will? This is an outrage!” Cardigan gulped his champagne in one. “MORE!” he shouted, nearly choking in the process.
“You know how my father asked me to resign from the army?” Stirling was perplexed that the earl would even care to be aware of such a fact.
“Of course, I know. Your friend, Royce, here, informed me of as much, and I saw it as my duty, as an officer and a gentleman, to correct the wrong imposed upon you, sir. Now, take these feathers and serve this regiment well in the coming war and we will give them back to those who falsely accused you of cowardice. That is the day, the “commerciante”, the merchant and the lawyer will choke on their own words.”
Cardigan’s face lit up once he had said his piece. Another sip of champagne soothed him some more. He placed his glass on his blotter with a thwack that nearly broke the stem.
“But firstly, recharge your glasses and let us have a look at the new recruits the Sergeant-Major has for us. They should be afternoonified and dressed smartly in their gas-pipes and coats. By God, the dregs of men that wallow in the squalor of this city; it’s a shambles I tell you.”
Chapter 10
Dressed in his full and heavily golden-brocaded blue dolmans and pelisses, Cardigan stalked out of the building onto the sand-covered parade ground. The fur busby with the maroon horsehair hackle hardly covered his lion-shaped head roofed with a mane resplendent of hair. The tap of his knee-high boots changed into a crunch as the soles touched the grit outside.
“Follow me, gentlemen.”
With the intent of a homing pigeon, he marched in the direction of a group of similarly attired men. He carried his glass of champagne in his left hand and in his right a cigar. Stirling and Royce, despite trying to refuse, also followed in his image. Royce was having trouble with the tangy taste of the smoke, but Stirling thought that the piquant Turkish tobacco was just the right blend.
“Here we have our newest recruits. Picked out of the vilest taverns in the rookeries of London. All of them have nothing to lose…until now that is…as of today, they are Cherrybums and will do their duty or I will batty-fang the hides off them.”
Cardigan came to a halt in front of the men that were committed to exercise. The three officers watched on as the detachment of men bent over to touch their toes and rose up in a jump, only to repeat the entire process again. As if in slow motion, the Sergeant-Major turned smartly on his heels and stood to attention.
“Commanding officer present; stand to, gentlemen.”
On cue, and with a scrape of heavy leather boots on the gravel, the twenty sweating men came up to their full heights with snap precision that belied their origins. Like a row of egrets, they stood stiff as pillars in their white shirts with dark patches under their armpits.
“At ease, Sergeant-Major; carry on,” barked the earl.
Stirling studied the assembled recruits as they began to continue their regimen. Despite their uniforms, they still represented an unsavoury bunch of louts. He recognized the type from his self-pitying bender in the east of London.
As his lordship had claimed, these were the dwellers of dodgy taverns and slapdash tenements – how would they ever become gentlemen? He cleared his throat from a thick waft of cigar smoke. “You plan to have them ready in time, My Lord? They are all green. I’d wager that they’ve never sat on a horse in their lives.”
“Of course, they haven’t seen a horse, man. They are as Wellington once said to the Earl of Stanhope: I don’t mean to say that there is no difference in the composition or therefore the feeling of the French army and ours. The French system of conscription brings together a fair sample of all classes; ours is composed of the scum of the mere Earth. It is only wonderful that we should make so much of them afterward.” He turned to look at Stirling with a fierce glint in his blue eyes.
“But, how did you get them to enlist? It appears that such men have no honour.” Stirling shifted his gaze from the earl back to the substandard assortment of men, sweating in the weak sunshine.
Cardigan smirked. “I quote the great Duke once more: The English soldiers are fellows who have enlisted for drink – that is the plain fact – they have all enlisted for drink. I say.”
“I see…”
“Don’t see, Major, do! Under my tutelage, these fellows will bellow boo-halloos from their mounts in no time. I train up a troop of fine horsemen in fourteen days. And this is no vain boast or I would not be Lord Cardigan, commander of the 11th Hussars.”
The earl sucked on his cigar audibly. He puffed up his chest like a rooster ready to crow a loud cock-a-doodle-do. As the smoke exited his nostrils and the sides of his mouth, he drained his flute in one. The bubbles made him belch and his cheeks puff up into little red balls covered with whiskers.
Stirling watched one man in particular. He towered above the rest like a behemoth. Despite his heavy breathing, he did not suffer as much as the rest of the troop of recruits. He had an affable face and pug-ears.
“Would you mind if I had a closer look, My Lord?”
“By all means, sir. You might as well since it will be you who trains them in the fine equestrian art. Maybe some of that Indian skill of yours will rub off onto them, eh?” Cardigan guffawed as he inspected his empty glass churlishly.
“Thank you, My Lord.”
Stirling walked up to the men who had stopped their exercises and now stood to attention.
“At ease, Sergeant-Major,” he said nodding at the man with bushy sideburns and a thick moustache that curled up at the sides of his mouth. He came to a halt in front of the big man. “What’s your name, sir?”
Diaries of a Heartbroken Duchess: A Historical Regency Romance Collection Page 38