A Close Run Thing

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Oh!’ he replied – groaned almost – as he thought what must come next.

  ‘Matthew, I am astounded! Do you not wish to see the marquess after so long away?’

  ‘Yes … of course … I …’ he stammered.

  ‘But do you not realize that Henrietta Lindsay will be there also? And there is to be another officer, too – well, from the yeomanry, that is.’

  Hervey groaned even louder. ‘Elizabeth, I must needs recount the events of the morning: they are not propitious.’

  No, not at all propitious, for it occurred to him that Henrietta Lindsay must have known in the park of this invitation, and she had played him as a cat’s-paw.

  Elizabeth spent much time contemplating her journal the following morning. She had much to write that was merely narrative – though dinner at Longleat was never occasion for a commonplace entry. She had first to describe the evening – the food, the music, the cards (there was no dancing), and such conversation as was of a routine nature. This much was straightforward, although she spent longer than she anticipated recalling the details of the elegant table laid before them: the Moroccan quails fattened in Normandy, ortolans from the Loire, truffles and champagne – all to be had easily, if at prodigious expense, now that the Royal Navy’s blockade was lifted. And she had to record, too, how they had dined à la Russe (no doubt at Henrietta’s insistence), with each course served by footmen in white gloves, to the ladies first, rather than the older fashion of laying all the dishes before them on the table.

  Her principal difficulty, however, lay in first comprehending, and then finding the appropriate words to describe, the sentiments and purposes of the three (as she put it) dramatis personae. Henrietta gave her most cause for perplexity, for her demeanour throughout the evening suggested some ‘understanding’ with Styles, although she had never confided anything of the sort. And Elizabeth began to doubt whether, indeed, she might claim any particular fellowship with her in light of this. Styles himself, she observed, had carried about him a sort of proprietorial air which at times verged on the possessive. It was evident, too, that this was exacerbated – perhaps deliberately encouraged even – by the attention that Henrietta showed to Matthew. Though, curiously, it seemed to her that Styles was more discomfited by adulation of Hervey as a soldier than by what Henrietta’s notice might truly portend.

  Of her brother, Elizabeth was in a state of mild despair. She had hoped that his service might have wrought something more masterful in him, yet last night he had been as ever. During dinner itself he had seemed at ease enough: there were occasions when he might even have been said to be expressive. Yet when coffee was served, and with it a renewal of Henrietta’s childhood teasing, he had relapsed into silence, whence nothing could tempt him for the remainder of the evening.

  At length she sighed, aloud and deep. She picked up her pen and wrote with a noticeably firmer hand than the plainer narrative had demanded: ‘I have ever held to Dryden’s avowal that none but the brave deserves the fair. And I cannot doubt that Matthew is brave, for he was ever so. Yet deserts are never wholly just, and I pray that his heart will not be faint.’

  VII

  WHEN PRIDE COMETH

  Horningsham, The Feast Day of St Mary Magdalen, 22 July

  ‘O COME, LET us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation,’ began the vicar of Horningsham.

  ‘Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and show ourselves glad in him with Psalms,’ came Hervey’s strong, clear response, in contrast to the frailer versicle. And so throughout the Venite.

  The Reverend Thomas Hervey opened the smaller bible used for the daily offices and announced the first lesson while, opposite, Matthew and Elizabeth Hervey sat alone in the choir stall. ‘Here beginneth the eleventh chapter of the Book of Proverbs: “A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight. When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them …”’

  As a boy Hervey had regularly attended the daily offices with his father, for whom it was the command of the Book of Common Prayer that they be said publicly: ‘And the Curate that ministereth in every Parish-Church or Chapel, being at home, and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the same in the Parish-Church or Chapel where he ministereth, and shall cause a Bell to be tolled thereunto a convenient time before he begin, that the people may come to hear God’s Word, and to pray with him.’ Since John’s going away to Oxford, and Matthew’s to the war, Elizabeth had filled the antiphonal void (for the vicar of Horningsham could afford neither curate nor clerk), though Thomas Hervey had never been entirely at ease with a woman in his chancel. There was little doubting the old man’s pleasure in having once again a son at Morning Prayer.

  Afterwards, however, as they walked to the vicarage, the sun warm on their backs even at that early hour, he seemed to be at some pains to show his esteem for Elizabeth’s succour during those long years: ‘I think it a pity that, when the prayer book supplanted the breviary, St Mary Magdalen’s became no longer a holy day,’ he began, ‘for it was she to whom the risen Lord first appeared and gave a message for the brethren.’

  Elizabeth saw at once his meaning: ‘And it was she who remained at the cross.’

  The vicar of Horningsham nodded.

  ‘Could it be that her former sins stood against her still?’ wondered Hervey, somehow of the mind that Cranmer had been, perhaps, less forgiving than some.

  ‘Oh, I think not. She was a true penitent. Yet there are those in the Eastern churches, as I believe, who hold that it was not the Magdalen who was the sinner but a third woman.’

  ‘How so, Father? I have not heard this,’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘Oh, my poor scholarship is insufficient, I am afraid. That must be a question for Mr Keble,’ he replied.

  ‘Dear Mr Keble,’ sighed Elizabeth. ‘I hope he will stay with us again, do not you, Matthew?’

  Hervey agreed, for there was in John Keble’s certain faith much that gave comfort – as there had been with Sister Maria.

  The thought of Sister Maria was especially apt that day, for it was the convent’s patronal festival. He felt uneasy still about his promise to her, though he was at a loss to know what more he could do as things stood: while he had been in London he had taken a letter to the French consul-general for the comte de Chantonnay; but there had been no word from France, and it looked as though the ring he carried constantly would go with him to Ireland when the time came.

  When breakfast was ended Elizabeth took her journal to the garden. Hervey went with her, taking the April-quarterly edition of the Edinburgh Review which d’Arcey Jessope had sent him that very week, with the first article marked for his attention, a lengthy piece on ‘The State and Prospects of Europe’. ‘Do you hear this?’ he began after some moments perusing it. ‘“The first and predominant feeling which rises on contemplating the scenes that have just burst on our view, is that of deep-felt gratitude, and unbounded delight, – for the liberation of so many oppressed nations, – for the cessation of bloodshed and fear and misery over the fairest portions of the civilized world, – and for the enchanting prospect of long peace and measureless improvement, which seems at last to be opening on the suffering kingdoms of Europe.”’ He sighed. ‘A long peace and measureless improvement – that is a happy prospect is it not?’

  ‘A truly happy prospect,’ she replied. ‘But though improvement is contingent upon peace, certainly, it does not of itself follow. Do you suppose that our parliament shall embrace improvement as vigorously as they did war?’

  ‘Not for one moment,’ he smiled, ‘but they will pursue the dividends of peace, and some of these might as a consequence promote improvement.’

  ‘So you are not for Reform, Matthew? The marquess is, I believe, though Sir George Styles is not.’

  ‘Am I not so obvious a radical, then?’ h
e laughed. ‘I care not one jot how Styles – father or son – stand on Reform!’

  ‘When pride cometh, then cometh shame!’ she chided.

  ‘You were attentive during the lesson, sister.’

  ‘I am ever thus, I assure you! But the marquess – he has a right judgement in such things, think you not?’

  ‘I confess an admiration for the marquess,’ he conceded.

  ‘And for his ward surely?’ she teased.

  ‘My dear Elizabeth, we were speaking of matters of substance.’

  ‘And is not admiration a matter of substance?’

  ‘Only if the admiration is substantial!’

  He was pleased with his response, but she was too quick. ‘Then you must now answer for the extent of your admiration rather than for its mere existence!’

  Hervey sighed again, but he was not entirely without the skill for a riposte. ‘I confess to more admiration for Henrietta Lindsay than she for me, yet that need not amount to a very great deal.’

  Elizabeth thought it prudent to make no reply, and instead she carefully recorded her brother’s assessment in her journal.

  ‘Tell me, Elizabeth,’ he began after several minutes’ silence, ‘you and Henrietta are close, yet …’ His words trailed off.

  ‘Oh, Matthew, do not scruple to speak of the truth. You mean that Henrietta is rich, or at least comparatively so, and moves in the best of society. And she is uncommonly pretty, and has graces, and … refinement. Whereas I—’

  ‘No! I did not mean it so,’ he interrupted.

  ‘What did you mean so, then?’

  ‘What I mean is that it is unjust to speak of those qualities as if the very opposite were the case with you, for it is not – well, not those which are qualities of the person for sure!’

  ‘You are ever sweet, Matthew! And yet, though there are differences between Henrietta and me, we are, I think, confidantes, or as near as may be so called. And have been so these many years, since the schoolroom with its childish intimacies. But, for my part, Henrietta’s love of society is sufficient for the both of us, for I truly do not think I have the inclination for it, as well as not having the means. And for Henrietta’s part – you must ask her, for she will freely confess to a fascination for the parish and poorhouse but only at a remove, only in my telling. She is the same person whom we knew in the schoolroom, but her circumstances permit her no true purpose in life: I can have no envy for her position. Yet I know there is something deeper which may inspire her. You have been here a full month: you must have some sense of this yourself?’

  ‘But I have seen so little of her, and then only without any intimacy in the least part. She is as distant as first she was in the park. I am to school her mare again today, but it will be the same.’

  ‘There is no reason, I think, why it should be. You have much that is of mutual interest: she admires greatly your facility with horses.’ Elizabeth could not bring herself to be more direct.

  ‘But she is so well versed in the works of the literary men – and women – of the moment that at times we may as well speak a different tongue. It would seem that all England has been busy with the pen these past five years.’

  ‘Matthew, they are, as you say, of the moment.’

  ‘Well said,’ he laughed – it was time to be done with that concern. ‘So tell me, Elizabeth, what have you seen of the saddle of late?’

  ‘Next to nothing, I confess. It is three seasons since I saw hounds.’

  ‘Then, at least I may remedy that. You must visit me in Ireland as soon as I am settled there: the word is that there is no finer country outside the shires.’

  ‘Shall I find a husband, too?’ she smiled.

  ‘Only if you are able to choose between the many who will propose!’

  ‘You are ever loyal and gallant, brother!’ she laughed. ‘I fear that it will be your undoing!’

  He did not return until almost four, having spent two hours first longeing then attempting some of the simpler evolutions with Henrietta’s new mare. Afterwards she had asked him to take some refreshment at the house, but since Hugo Styles had latterly attached himself he had declined, though he was now regretting his pique.

  ‘The family is in the garden with a caller, Master Matthew,’ said Francis as Hervey strode into the cool darkness of the hall.

  Taking tea at four was (to Hervey’s mind) a conceit lately come to Horningsham, an import from neighbouring Bath. Whose choice this was he had not been troubled to discover, but he would have hazarded the opinion that his mother had succumbed to the influence of Longleat House (though he would have been wrong, for Longleat held to the older custom, and it was Elizabeth who had urged the practice on the household, having read of it in one of Miss Austen’s novels). The scene in the garden of that comfortable parsonage was not one of perfect fashion, however, for the sight of a china teacup and saucer in a hand that Hervey had only ever seen holding either sabre or bottle was so incongruous as to be positively bizarre. The caller sprang up, deftly transferring cup and saucer from right hand to left, and knuckled his forehead, though bareheaded, as was the custom in the Sixth. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Hervey sir!’

  ‘Serjeant Armstrong! What in heaven’s name—? Forgive me, Father,’ he reddened, checking his mild profanity. ‘What could possibly bring you here?’

  ‘Matthew,’ began his mother before Armstrong could manage a word, ‘the serjeant has been given leave but has chosen to come to see you! And he has told us so much about you and the war: I cannot think why you did not tell us yourself!’

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ laughed Elizabeth, ‘we women are not to hear of such things! We should swoon, should we not?’

  Armstrong was smiling. He looked as untroubled as if tea in a country parsonage were his everyday habit. So many times in Spain and Portugal Hervey had seen, or heard of, this rough-and-ready serjeant fighting with the fury of a wildcat, and yet he now seemed equally capable of charming the gentlest of souls that were his mother and father, and likewise engaging the most discriminating of mortals that was his sister. ‘Sit down, Serjeant Armstrong,’ he said with a wry smile as he took a chair himself. ‘What really brings you here? You have orders for me, I’ll warrant.’

  By now the family had acquired a sufficient ear for Armstrong’s Tyneside vowels and idiom (as alien as anything that had been heard in the village), and were able, just, to discern that he had been sent from Dover to the depot in Canterbury to collect a draft, and that, just before he was to leave for Ireland with them, the recruits were sent instead to the Nineteenth in Canada. The depot’s commander had granted him leave (no doubt a less troublesome option, thought Hervey, than having him with time on his hands in Canterbury), and Armstrong had decided to make his way to Cork via Horningsham.

  Hervey could not but feel it a flattering, if unusual, choice of route. ‘So you are not carrying orders from the regiment?’

  ‘No, sir. Are you expecting any?’

  ‘Major Edmonds instructed me to remain here until such arrived.’

  There followed much pleasant but inconsequential conversation, during which the serjeant was able to recount other instances of his cornet’s capability (and, indeed, occasions, too, of less distinction), though Hervey himself was lost in contemplation of the continuing absence of orders. Suddenly, however, Armstrong’s turn of story sounded alarm – the affair of the Alcalde of Mayorga’s daughter and the barrel of sardines. ‘How much leave is owing to you, Serjeant Armstrong?’ he asked abruptly, anxious that the subject be changed.

  Armstrong was quick to the signal: ‘More than I’m ever likely to be permitted to take, sir!’

  ‘Well, I have an idea,’ he began. ‘I have another month’s leave, perhaps more. Major Edmonds said that I was to stay until receiving orders from him or direct from Lord Sussex. I think that you should stay here, too – we can arrange lodgings hereabouts – and drill into our yeomanry troop some practical elements of the profession.’

  At this Elizabeth frown
ed. ‘Do you think that Hugo Styles would welcome that?’ she asked doubtfully.

  Hervey looked faintly surprised. ‘He is not so great a fool as to decline it, surely?’

  ‘I was thinking less of the strictly military side, Matthew. Might he not consider it further rivalry?’

  But her brother did not catch her meaning. ‘That business in the park is long past,’ he replied.

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and sighed to herself. Armstrong sensed at once what her brother had failed to, though he could not know the precise details. She, equally sensible of his position, hastened to make some explanation: ‘You must forgive me, Serjeant; I did not intend trespassing on military questions. I am merely anxious to avoid any unnecessary ill-feeling in the district: the yeomanry are so intimate a part of our life at present.’

  ‘No offence, Miss ’Ervey, none at all. These yeomen are proud men: regulars have to step lightly with ’em. To call ’em cat-shooters is horrible cruel.’

  This was uncommon diplomacy, thought Hervey: it would have done even Serjeant Strange credit. Nevertheless he was pleased when his father’s repeating half-hunter came to his aid, striking the half-hour so as to make the Reverend Thomas Hervey spring up with singular speed muttering something about Evening Prayer. Hervey’s mother felt a need to speak to cook, and Elizabeth said she would go with her father to church.

  And so, alone in the garden, Hervey and Armstrong sat for some time without speaking, the late-afternoon birdsong supplanting their earlier talk. Both found themselves listening to it intently, even. From the tops of the elms around the house and the yews in the churchyard, and from deep inside the beech hedges, there came a ceaseless chorus of blackbirds and finches which would soften between midday and this hour, and then resume until only a last, solitary thrush remained in the gathering dusk, deposed in turn by the eerier night sounds. Out in the vale rooks chattered and cawed continually. Over the cornfields the sky was full of wood pigeons with their buzzing and queer calls; and even up on the downs, where there were no hedges and precious few trees, the larks were so numerous that there was continuous song from one end of the plain to the other. How little birdsong there had seemed in Spain and France by comparison.