Hervey 09 - Man Of War

by Allan Mallinson

  When he arrived at No. 27, Berkeley Square, he trusted that it was at an hour when Heinrici would not be at home, having sent word to Elizabeth the evening before that he would call on her. His sister received him warmly, happily indeed, yet with just the suggestion of unease that derived from knowing her brother’s disapproval. She showed him into a small sitting room and asked Major Heinrici’s man to have coffee brought to them. She did it so sweetly, and Heinrici’s man was so pleased to be obliging (evidence, he rued, of his sister’s being entirely at home with her lamentable decision) that Hervey had to remind himself not to be beguiled into complicity.

  ‘A handsome house,’ he said, with a note of accusation.

  Elizabeth ignored the note. ‘It is, is it not? Major Heinrici, I find, has the most felicitous taste.’

  That did not sound entirely like his sister. There was a note of irreverence, of defiance even. He would not mince his words (what point did it serve?): ‘And you are resolved on this . . . course?’

  A footman brought coffee. ‘Schönen Dank, Hartmut. Und eine Bissen Kuchen, vielleicht?’

  Hervey’s expression was now undisguised: he had never known her possess a word of German. ‘You have wasted no time in that regard, I see.’

  But again Elizabeth would not give battle: if her brother wanted to test her defences, he was going to have to do so more resolutely than mere tilting. ‘Indeed I have. All Major Heinrici’s servants speak the most excellent English, but I have a mind that they like to hear me try at least.’

  ‘So you see a good deal of them, then?’

  ‘Daily – when I am permitted by my obligations at Horningsham, and the workhouse.’

  One of those obligations, he knew full well, ought wholly to be his own, and the other – their parents – he rightly shared with Elizabeth, though in absentia. Was she trying to wrong-foot him by such a remark? He would not be shaken, however. He cleared his throat determinedly, and moved to the edge of his chair. ‘So you refuse to give up this scheme?’

  ‘Scheme, Matthew?’

  ‘Your . . . renouncing Peto, and taking instead this . . . German. You refuse to change your course?’

  ‘Who asks me to?’

  Hervey was astonished. ‘I cannot believe I am speaking to my own sister!’

  ‘And I cannot believe it too!’

  Hervey stood up. ‘You give a man your word to marry him, and then renounce him to take another: is that right conduct? Is that what people would consider right conduct?’

  Elizabeth rose, and threw up her chin. ‘Do not you judge me, Matthew! Do not you presume that because I have lived quietly all my life – ay, and obligingly – that I have no feeling!’

  Hervey’s mouth fell open in utter incomprehension. Then his voice began to rise. ‘I might understand it – though heaven knows how – if you were simply to say that you did not wish any longer to marry Peto. But to take up with another while still promised—’

  ‘I have written to Captain Peto . . .’ There was just a note of imploring.

  ‘Written? Written? ’

  ‘Matthew, it is our only means of communication. His proposal to me was in writing, and my acceptance too.’

  ‘It is not decent, Elizabeth. You cannot marry this man!’

  Elizabeth stiffened. ‘Ah, for the sake of appearance you would have me die an old maid!’

  ‘I can’t believe what I hear!’

  She breathed deeply, her face red with anger and dismay. ‘Well, Matthew, I may tell you that I am incapable of obliging you in that regard any longer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She held his stare, though with the greatest difficulty. ‘I have lain with Major Heinrici!’

  Hervey looked as if he would explode. ‘Good God!’

  Elizabeth’s jaw now positively jutted. ‘How dare you, Matthew! How dare you condemn me when you do as you do!’

  Hervey’s face returned to incomprehension. ‘What do you mean, “do as I do”?’

  ‘Hah! You think me so provincial that I do not know what takes place between you and Lady Katherine Greville? And she a married woman, Matthew – a married woman! Do you want to debate the degree to which we both individually break the seventh commandment?’

  Hervey reeled. ‘This is unsupportable! I cannot believe what I hear. We can have no more to say to each other. Goodbye, Elizabeth!’ And he turned and stalked from the room as if he would knock down the first man who ill-crossed his path.

  He ate no lunch. He walked instead for mile upon mile, at turns angry and despairing, yet not knowing precisely what was the true root of the anger, nor of the despair, which did not help his recovering the composure he considered necessary for returning to the United Service Club. Until at about six o’clock, in St James’s Park, a Guards band playing gentle Irish tunes he recalled from the Peninsula began to calm his savage breast.

  He sat on a bench listening, observing two ducks from the lake making affectionate display, until he started wondering at his own judgement, which he knew, in his wholly rational moments, to be distorted still by the image of Henrietta and that short but perfect consummation of all his childhood longing (and that of his cornet years – the uncomplicated time, the honest years). He was doing his very best, was he not, to recover the simplicity of those years? And was he not merely, and rightly, alarmed for Elizabeth’s sake, anxious that she too did not fall into the sort of maze in which he had stumbled for so long?

  He rose, replaced his hat, dusted off his coat, and, suppressing a sigh that might have been deep enough to make the ducks give flight, strode peaceably at last towards the Horse Guards Parade, and thence to the United Service.

  There he found Fairbrother in the coffee room, looking more uneasy than ever he had seen him. ‘My dear fellow, are you quite well?’

  Fairbrother, holding a large measure of whiskey and soda, which looked as if it might already have been replenished at least once, shook his head, as if doubting his ability to give an answer.

  ‘I am sorry I was not returned at our usual hour,’ continued Hervey. ‘I imagined, though, that your interview with Mr Wilberforce might become an extended affair.’

  His friend nodded, and then shook his head again, seeming to correct himself. ‘No, it was of no very great length.’

  ‘What is the matter?’ Hervey sat down opposite him and nodded to the steward.

  Fairbrother scratched his forehead. ‘How was your sister?’

  Hervey looked away and cleared his throat. ‘I think the least said the better on that account.’

  ‘Why? What transpired between the two of you?’ Fairbrother was now sitting upright.

  Hervey was first inclined to think it was no business of his friend’s, but . . . ‘She is adamant she will not marry Peto, and that she will marry instead this German.’

  Fairbrother frowned. ‘He has a name, has he not?’

  ‘Heinrici.’

  ‘Yes, I know it is Heinrici. If you would use it rather than “this German” you might become better disposed towards him. In any case, I rather thought you approved of Germans.’

  ‘Of course I approve.’

  ‘The most faithful fellows, by all accounts.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, though—’

  ‘Well perhaps you might admit that Elizabeth may admire that quality too.’

  Hervey took the glass from the steward, and a long sip of it to gain a little time: his friend was distracting him with superficially reasonable propositions. ‘Why were you looking so discomposed when I returned? And still do.’

  Fairbrother stifled a sigh, biting his lip and fair rolling his eyes. Hervey knew at once he was steeling himself to something.

  ‘I went to Mr Wilberforce’s this morning, and he received me very civilly, but abed. He had a severe chill. I had not thought that he was such an age, which was remiss of me of course. I stayed only a little while; we resolved to meet again when he was better. And then I went to Greenwich, instead of tomorrow. I told you that I�
��d learned that Admiral Holmes’s papers were there, and I wished to see them.’

  Hervey nodded: he recalled the intention well.

  Fairbrother breathed in deep before resuming. ‘Well, in the course of that visit I was shown the hospital – I never saw such a noble place – and on the door of one of the officers’ rooms was the name of your friend, Peto.’

  Hervey’s face at once betrayed alarm.

  Fairbrother’s changed from resolution to sadness. ‘It was pitiful, Hervey. So active a man as I heard you so often describe, yet reduced to . . .’He fell silent.

  Hervey, gathering his own strength for the question, was some time before he could reply. ‘What is it? Are you able to say precisely? He is wounded, is he, or is it an infection – something from the east?’

  Fairbrother nodded. ‘He is wounded, really very grievously. He has lost an arm, and the left is still badly shattered. And he has not the use of his legs. The surgeons do not know why.’

  Hervey groaned – a long, hopeless sigh of despair. He made to rise. ‘I must go at once.’

  ‘No, Hervey,’ said Fairbrother, reaching out a hand to grasp his friend’s knee. ‘He was dosed with morphium as I left. The surgeon said to give him a peaceful night.’

  Hervey sat back and emptied his glass. ‘Was the surgeon able to say what had happened? Why have we not known before now?’

  Fairbrother sat back, too, and beckoned to the steward for more whiskey. ‘It seems he made his lieutenant keep his name from the casualty returns until the following day, by which time Codrington had sent his despatch. The ship’s surgeon thought he would not live more than a day or so. He removed the arm and filled him with laudanum, and after ten days or so, though he was still very fevered, he was transferred to a brig and taken to Malta. He was brought to Greenwich not ten days ago.’

  ‘Were you able to speak with him?’

  ‘I was, yes. I told him of our acquaintance . . . and Elizabeth.’

  Hervey groaned. ‘What did he say of her?’

  Fairbrother’s voice almost broke in the reply. ‘He asked to see you, so that he might tell you he wished to release Elizabeth from the engagement.’

  Hervey sighed, loud, and shook his head. ‘Was there ever such decency as in that man? Oh, God!’

  ‘The very greatest nobility.’

  Hervey gritted his teeth. ‘I shall see him – tomorrow; and so shall Elizabeth. Let her see for herself what duty calls a man to do – and judge for herself what a woman’s response should be!’

  Fairbrother looked troubled. ‘Hervey, I don’t think—’

  ‘No, Fairbrother: I am utterly determined on it!’

  XIX

  RAIN ON SAIL

  Next day

  Hervey engaged a chaise for Greenwich, which proved a longer and more trying journey than he had imagined. Scarcely a word was spoken between brother and sister in the two hours that it took to drive there. Even Fairbrother fell quiet after his attempts at generating conversation failed, so that he resolved instead to be their good supporter, though as a silent buttress.

  Hervey looked severe but composed. Fairbrother perfectly understood: he knew that his friend had scarcely slept for thinking of the consequences both of Peto’s wounds and of the reunion. Elizabeth, on the other hand, looked as gentle a woman as ever she was, but most ill at ease. Fairbrother wondered that her certainty in her new-found love (he hoped very much to be able to meet Heinrici soon) did not arm her more for the ordeal that was to come. But he had not been privy to the meeting of brother and sister the morning before, and certainly not in the evening, when Hervey had taken her the news. He could only imagine what effect his friend’s commanding assurance had on a sister who deferred to him as, in most respects, paterfamilias.

  When they arrived, he conducted them to Peto’s quarters. There was a rank smell to the place this morning – stale urine, faeces, and something Fairbrother fancied was suppuration. Perhaps it was because the presence of the gentler sex made him more sensible of such things, though had he but known that the Warminster workhouse could smell ranker still, he would not have troubled on Elizabeth’s behalf.

  Hervey hesitated as they neared Peto’s room, second thoughts crowding in on him. Should he not permit his sister to enter first (they were officially engaged, after all) or should it be he, as older friend? Or perhaps they should enter together? Was it truly why he hesitated? He looked at Elizabeth, hoping for the answer, as so often. She took a deep breath, slipped her arm round his, and led him through the door, leaving Fairbrother sentinel outside.

  Peto’s eyes remained closed. He sat upright, strapped in a high-back chair, his left arm free but in a splint, a scar across his forehead, and another to his neck, his legs bound, and his right sleeve empty.

  Hervey’s eyes at once filled with tears.

  Elizabeth took three silent steps to his side, and bent to kiss his forehead. Peto woke, with a look that spoke of both happiness and dismay. ‘Miss Hervey—’ he sighed, as if wearied beyond measure. He saw Hervey, and his look became a kind of relief: ‘My dear friend.’

  Hervey, fighting hard to keep his own anguish in check, took hold of his old friend’s hand. ‘I had no idea—’

  Peto seemed to brace himself, though restrained by the fastenings. ‘We sank five, and saved the flagship, likely as not. The deucedest ill luck, this . . .’

  Elizabeth, managing for the most part to conceal her own distress, looked at him anxiously nevertheless. ‘We received no letters; we had no word, or of course we would have come.’

  Peto shook his head, as if to bid her not to distress herself on that account. ‘I wrote a good many, but getting them away was—’ He began coughing, motioning to the water glass on a side table. Hervey tried to put it to his mouth, but Peto shook his head and took it for himself by the splinted arm. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, giving back the empty glass; ‘a chill caught on the passage home.’

  Elizabeth looked more anxious still: the coughing was not wholly unlike the rattling hacks she heard of a winter night in the Warminster union. ‘Shall I ask a doctor to come? Is there a powder I may get for you?’

  Peto tried to smile, though the effort looked painful. ‘No, Miss Hervey, there is no need of either. Only a chill . . .’ He closed his eyes momentarily. ‘The letters: getting them away from a man-of-war is ever a business.’

  ‘But no word in the fleet returns of your . . . your situation,’ said Hervey, looking deeply troubled. ‘I read Codrington’s despatch.’

  Peto closed his eyes again, as if fighting something unseen (he would not ask his friend to send for more of the morphium). ‘My dear Hervey, you of all men should know that a general’s first despatch can be but an incomplete account – a notice of victory, and the bare bones of a narrative.’

  ‘Yes, but I hazard – and from what you have said I am certain – that your ship was in the thick of it.’

  ‘She was, and many a good man we lost, too. But . . . See you, I may as well tell: when I was hit and taken below,’ (he began coughing again) ‘I gave a most positive order to my lieutenant that he was not to report my injury to the flag . . . which I am pleased to say he obeyed without question for a full day and a half, until I lapsed into . . . sleep, and was not in any degree able to exercise command.’

  ‘But why, in God’s name, did you do that?’ Before him was a man barely capable of speaking, months after the event: how had he imagined he might command a ship? What spirit was this that animated his friend?

  Peto raised his hand, with no little effort, to say ‘enough’.

  They drew up chairs.

  The conversation was no less halting for its being seated, however, and after a quarter of an hour Peto appeared to tire quite markedly. He asked if Hervey would leave him for the moment so that he could speak with Elizabeth.

  When her brother was gone, and the door was closed, Elizabeth made to begin, but Peto stayed her. ‘I must speak first,’ he insisted, and with patent effort, ‘.
. . if you will permit me, Miss Hervey.’

  She smiled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘It was never my wish that you should learn of things in this way, but you now see what is my condition, and,’ (he swallowed, as if to suppress his own reluctance to say it) ‘I am resolved upon releasing you from your acceptance of marriage,’ (Elizabeth tried to speak, but again he stayed her) ‘for you see – and must know when I tell you – that I am unable to be that which you had every right to expect.’

  Elizabeth was silent, stunned by both the nobility of the concession and by the gentlemanlike manner of its delivery. There were no tears, though she felt the profoundest sadness. Her countenance was transformed instead by the evident goodness of the man with whom she had once thought she would be contentedly married. And then, after what seemed an age of contemplation, she lowered her eyes, gathering some sort of strength or resolve, and, taking his hand, began her reply.

  ‘My dear Captain Peto, I scarce know how to form any response, for you are in such . . . discomfort, and I in perfect health. I thank you for so noble a thing, and it is for that nobility as much as anything that I believe I must tell you in absolute truth that your release is welcome to me. Not because of your injuries, for they would have been nothing to me were it not for the discovery of my own true heart, which I confess is engaged with another, by a means I could scarcely have thought possible and in a manner I had never imagined could be. Forgive me, my dear Captain Peto, if this is painful to you, but I could never be dishonest with a man such as you, and wish fervently to remain your friend . . . come what may.’