Warrior mh-10

by Allan Mallinson

  And, too, such were Fairbrother's cultivated mind and manners that his company would have been sought by gentlemen of the best of families. Only a certain weariness with life (although not so much as when they had first met a year or so ago) stood between him and Hervey, which the latter chose largely to ignore rather than understand. Fairbrother was not a willing soldier in the way that Hervey was; he had not thought himself a soldier from an early age. His father had purchased a commission for him in the Jamaica Militia, and thence in the Royal Africans (a corps which more resembled the penitentiary than the regular army), and then on the best of recommendations Hervey had sought him out from his indolent half pay at the Cape to accompany him to the frontier as interpreter. Their first meeting had been unpropitious. Indeed, Hervey had very near walked from it in contempt of the man. But now this handsome, half-caste, gentlemanlike, disinclined soldier was rapidly becoming his paramount friend. La vie militaire: it was the deucedest, strangest thing!

  When his friend was done with his uncharacteristically enthusiastic account of the countryside and seashores of Devon, Hervey told him of the offer of command, and of the Russian mission, and why they must return early to the Cape. He told him that Kezia and Georgiana would not be able to accompany him (hiding his disappointment, he thought, adequately). He said that it grieved him to leave poor Peto, and how he had wished to see him settled first at Houghton, but he trusted that Lord Cholmondeley, with Kat's continuing interest, would see his old friend right. He did not speak of Kat herself. He told him of Caithlin Armstrong, and observed his friend's real and considerable dismay. Lastly, he told him of Lord Holderness's relapse, although the epileptic seizure was not so debilitating as had been the one at Windsor, when he had nearly drowned as a consequence. He said that Lady Holderness had expressed her alarm that her husband had suffered another bout so soon (they did not normally recur within six months); and he confessed he had told the adjutant that the colonel had a cold and would not appear at orderly room for a day or so. That had been in the middle of the preceding week, he explained, and Lord Holderness was now restored and at office. He himself was therefore free to make the arrangements for their return to Cape Town.

  'Is there anything I might do on your behalf ?' asked Fairbrother.

  Hervey thought for a moment. 'There is, but not today. Tomorrow will do perfectly well. I should like you to go to the War Office and inform them that I am soon to return to the Cape, and enquire if in consequence there is any commission they wish of me. Explain that I must attend at Hounslow; hence my not coming in person.'

  'Very well. You will give me a letter of introduction or some such?'

  'I will, though John Howard might best conduct you there. And I beg you will forgive me if I ask that you dine here alone – just this evening – for Kezia and I are obliged to her aunt.'

  Fairbrother raised a hand. 'Think nothing of it. I would not dream of intruding on the honeymoon. You have not said, by the way: how was your Brighton?'

  Lady Marjoribanks lifted her head high when she addressed her new nephew by marriage. 'It is most unfortunate, Colonel Hervey, that you will not be able to hear your wife sing. You are quite certain, are you, that you must leave for Africa so early?'

  And the tone was distinctly more accusatory than sympathetic. Hervey had to resist the desire to re-phrase the observation so that the misfortune was Kezia's in not being able to accompany her husband in his duties. 'I fear I must return next week, yes, Lady Marjoribanks.'

  A footman poured more wine, which gave him just enough cause to avoid the gaze of his hostess. Hervey was by no means entirely discomfited by Kezia's aunt, but on the subject of his return to the Cape there had already been a sufficiency of objection. He was in any case reconciled, however reluctantly, to returning unaccompanied.

  Lady Marjoribanks watched as another footman served her fish, a pause which Hervey hoped would be followed by a change in the direction of the conversation. 'Your wife's voice stands comparison with that of any professional singer, you know, Colonel Hervey. It is truly inopportune, this early return. The presence of the husband at this first concert in London is most desirable. Indeed to my mind it is unthinkable that it should be otherwise.'

  Hervey would not have conceived it otherwise had there not been the imperative of Somervile's mission. He began to resent this – to his mind – inversion of the usual order of things. It was simple enough, was it not? He was a soldier, a soldier was under discipline, and he had received orders. Or, if not exactly orders, then a request; and a request from a senior officer was always to be considered an order (even though Somervile was not a senior officer). 'It is a deprivation that we shall all have to bear, Lady Marjoribanks, and it will be the easier in knowing that it is on His Majesty's business that I am bent.'

  'Mm.' Lady Marjoribanks raised her head again, sounding unconvinced.

  Hervey was wondering, too, if Kezia herself might not make some intervention on his behalf. He had after all withdrawn his objection to her remaining in England, and that was surely no little thing. He had likewise put in abeyance (in his mind at least) command of the Eighty-first: if a wife had objection to so great a thing as command of a particular regiment (or, more expressly, a particular station), then a man must take very careful account of it. And she knew, did she not, that he did so? He was at something of a loss, therefore, to know why she did not speak up for him now.

  He looked at her.

  'Shall you bring Georgiana here tomorrow?' was all that Kezia asked.

  He was glad nevertheless of the change of subject. 'I shall have to go to Hounslow tomorrow. The day after, perhaps.'

  'Where does she stay?' asked Lady Marjoribanks.

  'At Grillon's hotel, in Albemarle-street.'

  'Ah, Grillon's,' she replied, somewhat enigmatically, so that Hervey was tempted to ask if there was something he ought to know of it.

  But instead he would be blithe. 'My family stayed there for the wedding. It appears a very agreeable place. It is convenient, also, for my sister.'

  'Mm.'

  The dinner continued in much the same fashion for a full hour. Lady Marjoribanks asked a good many questions but gave little by reply to any which Hervey was able to put to her in return. Kezia said next to nothing other than in direct response to an enquiry from her aunt. The proceedings were, indeed, so laboured that Hervey believed he had sufficient of the language to translate them simultaneously into Hindoostani or even Portuguese. Just after nine they rose, and Lady Marjoribanks announced that she would retire.

  Hervey and Kezia took their coffee on the garden terrace. The evening was warm, the light only now beginning to fail.

  'You said little at dinner, my love. Is all well?'

  Kezia smiled thinly. 'All is perfectly well, yes, thank you. I am sorry if I was dull.'

  Hervey frowned. 'I did not mean to imply . . . I merely remarked that you seemed a little . . . Perhaps you are tired. This heat . . .'

  Kezia put down her coffee cup. 'I am a little tired, yes. And this weather brings on my headaches so. I think, if you will permit me, I shall retire, too.'

  Hervey put down his own cup. A confusion of dismay and anger welled up within. He had to fight hard to suppress it, for the wine was freeing the reins. A contrary image of Kat then danced into his mind. He did not summon it, nor even wish it; he pushed hard against it, in fact, for together with the wine it only served to aggravate his frustration.

  Kezia turned. For all the distance in her manner, she was as striking in the perfection of her form and features as that day at Sezincote when he had first understood how much he desired her. She threw him a parting smile; but it spoke of sadness.

  Hervey's confusion was now the greater, to the point of despair, almost; but some instinct to protect overtook him, so that his frustration gave way instead to gentleness. 'I am happy to retire early,' he said, quietly. 'For I must be at Hounslow by ten.'

  Kezia smiled thinly again. 'You must do as you will, my dear. B
ut please try not to wake me when you come up.'

  She kissed his cheek before he could find her lips, and left him to the tray of brandy and water.

  Hounslow did not, in the event, detain him long, for Lord Holderness was returned to muster, and there had been no regimental defaulters in the brief hiatus of command. Hervey made his farewells before midday, certain that taking lunch in the officers' house would protract his stay overlong, there being old friends at duty. But he did not intend returning directly to London. He had resolved to call on Sister Maria, and although he did not know anything about conventual routine, he supposed that the early afternoon, as with any household, was the appropriate time to visit without appointment.

  He therefore made his way to Hammersmith, enquiring of several passers-by where was the convent, until a drayman was able to give him authoritative directions. To his surprise, he found that he had passed it each time he had come and gone from Hounslow, but so high was the wall that there was no clue to what lay beyond.

  He dismounted from the roadster, one of Kezia's aunt's, and rang the bell at the great double gates which fronted what he could now see was an establishment of some size. After not too long a time, an oldish man answered. He held a trowel in one hand, and he stooped, but he evidently possessed the authority to admit callers, since Hervey had given but his rank and name before one of the gates was opened to him. The man was at home with horses too, taking the reins willingly, and nodding to the gravel path between trimmed box, which led to the door of the convent.

  Hervey advanced cautiously in these hallows, more so than ever he had in Spain. And he knew why, for in the Peninsula the convent was an entirely native thing; here, if not exactly in London then close enough to be counted a suburb, it was altogether alien. The high walls did not help, of course: doubtless they were supposed to make for seclusion, but they spoke also of secrecy. And the whole appearance – purporting to be a sort of gentleman's residence, incognito, so to speak, whereas in Spain and Portugal a convent looked like a religious house . . .

  He came to the door, which was at least arched like a church's. He took a deep breath, and pulled at the bell. He heard it ring, distantly. There was now no going back.

  One of the sisters answered. She wore a black habit, like many of the Spanish and Portuguese nuns. Hervey was a little surprised, though, for having seen Sister Maria (the Reverend Mother Maria, as he must remember she now was) in a day dress at the bishop's house, he had assumed that the sisters kept the custom at home. It was, after all, the law of the land. But then, why should an Englishwoman not wear what she pleased in her home? And in truth, alien though the habit was, he was strangely pleased to see it, for at once it ordered, and therefore made easier, their intercourse – exactly as did the soldier's uniform.

  He took off his hat and cleared his throat. 'Good afternoon, Sister. Might I speak with the reverend mother?'

  The nun, not quite as old as the gardener-gatekeeper, peered at him through ivory-framed spectacles. 'Which?'

  Hervey cleared his throat again. 'The reverend mother, ma'am.'

  'Which reverend mother?' she repeated, and somewhat testily.

  He should have known, for he had not supposed that Sister Maria was likely to be superior of this convent. He smiled, he hoped pleasantly. 'Reverend Mother Maria,' he answered. And then, to be absolutely certain (for Maria could not be an unusual name for a nun), he added 'de Chantonnay.'

  'Come,' she replied, briskly and with no flicker of curiosity.

  Hervey assumed it to be an extension of the confidentiality of the confessional, except that he was not come to make his confession. Well, not in the strict sense. Nor, he knew for sure, could a nun pronounce absolution.

  The floor of the inner hall was flagstone, the hall itself rising to the third storey by a broad, scrubbed oak staircase. There were pictures of male and female religious on the walls, a niche with a crucifix, and another with a statue of the Virgin, but other than a tall long-case clock, there was no furniture of any kind. It was cool despite the heat of the afternoon, and silent but for the movement of the pendulum. Although the paintings were not those that would grace the walls of the gentry, the place might have been a friendly old manor house in Queen Anne's day.

  He was shown into a small receiving room.

  'Please wait.'

  The sister had been of few words, but he thought he detected an accent of the Low Countries. That was nothing surprising; so many priests and religious had taken refuge in England during the late war. Indeed, Parliament had paid many a stipend to foreign Catholics in holy orders. He smiled. The irony of it: Parliament, fount of the penal laws and yet paymaster to the clergy of Rome!

  In the receiving room there was a crucifix on the wall, three chairs, and nothing else. He thought he might as well sit down since he expected that Sister Maria would be at prayer or study or some such, and therefore not immediately to be disturbed.

  In this he was wrong, however, for scarcely had he sat but he was on his feet again, and bowing.

  'Colonel 'Ervey, this is a most pleasant surprise!'

  Sister Maria wore a habit the colour of the day dress she had worn at the bishop's house – brown, like some of the Franciscan friars he had seen in Spain. Evidently the other nun and she were of different orders, unless her position required her to wear a different colour (in France she had worn white, but, as he recollected, it was an overmantle). He did not suppose it was of importance.

  Her manner was not in the least like that of the other sister, however. Here was the same easy welcome of the bishop's house, and of all those years ago at Toulouse (though he did recall that at first their meeting had been stiff).

  'Sister Maria, it is very good of you to receive me. I should have sent notice, but . . .'

  'That would only be necessary if you wished to be certain that I was here. But it is so very rare that I am not. Please, take a seat, Colonel. Oh, may I bring you water?'

  It intrigued him how much of her pleasant disposition was revealed in her general air, for the wimple exposed so little of her features. Perhaps the severe framing of the face drew attention more directly to the eyes, which were ice blue and had lost none of the ability to pierce. And the years since Toulouse had been kind to her (kinder than to him). There, he had thought she was his senior; now, he thought it the other way round.

  He shook his head. 'No, thank you, Sister. Or – forgive me – do I call you "Reverend Mother"?'

  She sat down. 'That is the more correct. I am prioress of my carmel.'

  'And you are here . . . temporarily?'

  'I am.'

  Since she did not volunteer any more information, and since it was no part of the reason he was here, Hervey curbed his curiosity. 'Colonel Holderness has written to you thanking you for your assistance with Mrs Armstrong's funeral. You may have received it already?'

  'I have, and I was most touched by it, for I did but a very little.'

  'I regret I did not see you that day; there was much to be about.'

  'Of course. I did, however, see you, with, I imagine, your wife. And I should most certainly have presented myself had I not been in attendance on the bishop.'

  Hervey nodded. 'The bishop's presence was a considerable honour. It ought to go well with Serjeant-Major Armstrong when I am able to tell him of it. Some little comfort, at least. You know that he is at the Cape of Good Hope, and that I return there shortly with the ill news.'

  'I understood that, yes.'

  He fell silent.

  'And so, Colonel, what is it further that I may do for you?'

  He shifted a little in his chair, clenched his fists and cleared his throat. 'Reverend Mother, I am troubled by a particular . . . event, and I seek your counsel.'

  Sister Maria smiled beatifically. 'Colonel 'Ervey, would that counsel not be better had from a priest?'

  'I cannot judge, Reverend Mother, but I recall your good counsel in Toulouse.'

  'I recall that I gave you a vade mecum,
the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.'