A Close Run Thing mh-1

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Think what, sir?’ she demanded, her eyebrows arched high. ‘Think that you might take some pleasure in feminine company?’

  ‘No … well, that is …’ he stammered.

  ‘No, you do not take such pleasure? Or no, I should not think it?’

  There was a knock at the door, and Hervey could not conceal his relief when Francis appeared. ‘Begging your pardon, Master Matthew and your Ladyship, but there is an officer waiting to see someone.’

  ‘An officer?’ asked Hervey uncertainly. ‘To see me?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, sir; I’m sorry as I didn’t quite discern what the gentleman said.’

  Hervey looked at Henrietta, who smiled. ‘Perhaps, Matthew, if you were to receive him, his purpose might be revealed? I do not suppose it will be any great mystery.’

  Francis announced their visitor with as much recall as he was able. The name ‘Howard’ was all that Hervey could glean from this fumbled introduction, but he knew him at once to be a lieutenant of Foot Guards and general’s aide-de-camp. But he could not begin to imagine what might bring St James’s to Horningsham. ‘Good morning to you, Mr Howard,’ he said, offering his hand, though the officer seemed a trifle reluctant to take it. ‘How may we assist you?’

  And equally reluctant did he seem to reveal his purpose, so that Henrietta, losing patience, felt it necessary to reassure him: ‘Sir, do not suppose that I shall reveal the secrets of the Horse Guards to the French – or even to the people of Wiltshire!’

  The officer cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Mr Hervey, you will recall delivering a dispatch from his grace the Duke of Wellington to the Horse Guards two weeks past?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Hervey.

  ‘And you did not await an acknowledgement.’

  ‘No – 1 did not expect one.’

  ‘You did not expect one, Mr Hervey? Were you not on his grace’s business?’

  ‘Not so; that is … not directly.’ Even as he answered he felt a gnawing doubt. At the time his business seemed clear enough; now he was less certain. ‘I was on an assignment as regards regimental affairs and carried the dispatch as a supplementary duty. The clerk at the Horse Guards showed no urgency to attend to it. I had other matters to be about.’

  ‘Just so, Mr Hervey,’ replied the officer coolly. ‘I am commanded to request that you accompany me to the Horse Guards immediately.’

  A request by a senior officer, conveyed as it was by an ADC, was to all intents and purposes an order. A moment’s impatience with the headquarters clerk and it had come to this: for an instant he supposed he might next be asked for his sword. Was it, he wondered, the curse of Slade?

  ‘Immediately, did you say?’ snapped Henrietta, making Hervey start almost as much as the officer. ‘You must understand that it is quite impossible!’

  ‘Madam,’ he began, ‘I understand that it might not be to your convenience, but I have the most explicit instructions to insist that Mr Hervey accompany me. The adjutant-general himself—’

  ‘Sir, it is indeed no little inconvenience, for Mr Hervey and I are to be married this coming month!’

  Hervey was dumbfounded. He looked at the officer with blank astonishment, and then again at Henrietta.

  ‘Is that not what we were speaking of this very moment past, Matthew?’ she challenged.

  A minor commotion in the hall signalled the return of the vicar of Horningsham and his lady. Hervey’s mother bustled into the drawing room with loud protests that her absence at the school had been in the ignorance of her visitor’s calling. ‘My dear,’ she gushed to Henrietta, ‘why did not you tell us you were to call – and today of all days when cook is at her sister’s?’

  ‘It is of no moment whatever, Mrs Hervey,’ began Henrietta with a smile and a touch of the hand upon her arm. ‘Matthew and I were met to discuss our arrangements.’

  ‘Arrangements?’ asked his mother.

  Another commotion attended the return of Elizabeth, who swept into the room, pulling off her broad straw hat and throwing it on to a chair. ‘Arrangements, did I hear arrangements’? she laughed.

  The Reverend Thomas Hervey protested: ‘That is what was said, and I dare say they are entirely private arrangements and no business of ours!’

  Elizabeth, most unusually, now giggled. Her eyes twinkled, her mouth parted and her ringlets danced. The sun, despite the hat, had worked its usual way with her face, and freckles dotted her cheeks. The officer was staring at her when first she noticed him. Not awaiting any introduction she strode five full paces over to him and held out her hand. ‘And you will be one of Matthew’s friends?’ she beamed. ‘Only his Serjeants call on us as a rule!’

  The officer caught his breath as best he could, but not before Henrietta spoke to her enquiry. ‘No, my dear – not a friend; for sure not a friend. He is come to take my future husband from me, and forcibly if necessary.’

  Elizabeth hesitated (though showing no surprise at Henrietta’s notice of marriage), and then narrowed her eyes to a fearsome challenge.

  The officer who had at first disdained this provincial household was routed. He blushed and stammered an apology. ‘I hope you will understand, ma’am,’ he concluded.

  ‘I have never heard of such a thing!’ said Elizabeth, and with so much indignation as to make Hervey himself wince. ‘I had always thought us too far ashore for the press-gang. Why must you take him?’

  At which point Hervey’s father thought fit to re-assert sovereignty in his own vicarage. I am afraid, sir, that our manners here are not what they might be in London. I am the Reverend Thomas Hervey, vicar of this parish; and this is my wife … ,’ he continued, turning to Hervey’s mother, who frowned and made a small bow, ‘my daughter, Elizabeth … and my son, and my … ah, Lady Henrietta Lindsay,’ he said, indicating each in turn.

  ‘I am obliged, sir. Lord John Howard …’ And he in turn bowed.

  ‘Well, then, sir,’ resumed Elizabeth, ‘upon what necessity do you take our brother, son and soon-to-be husband from us all?’

  ‘I am sorry, Miss Hervey, you will understand that the interests of the Service—’

  ‘Do not you tell me about the interests of the Service, sir!’ she replied sharply. ‘Do not you presume us to be so country-bred that we know nothing of affairs! My brother is only yesterday returned from the Continent, where he might have been killed on the field at Waterloo. Were you at Waterloo, sir?’

  ‘Oh, Matthew, he was a stuffed shirt, a real cold fish. “The interests of the Service”, indeed. Who does he think we are? What can be so important about that dispatch?’

  Hervey had chided her the instant Lieutenant the Lord John Howard had taken temporary leave for the Bath Arms (where he hoped to find a tub in which to soak, and horses for their immediate return). No entreaty by Hervey’s father had been able to persuade him to take his refreshment at the vicarage. Instead it had been agreed that he would return at two to begin their journey to London – for such was the address, he insisted, with which he had been enjoined to act.

  ‘I think it must be a serious matter,’ conceded Hervey to his sister, though with little more than a frown. ‘I have clearly misjudged things, but’ – a smile overcame him – ‘I do not much care, for Henrietta and I are resolved to marry the instant I return. She declares she will brook no more absence!’

  ‘But how serious do you suppose it might be, Matthew?’ asked his father. ‘What could be the nature of the complaint against you?’

  ‘Well, sir, what I suppose is this: that there is some message which waits upon my return to France. I dare say there will be another month or so’s duty in Paris – that is all.’

  ‘And for this their lordships would send an officer from London?’ he replied doubtfully.

  Hervey merely lifted an eyebrow.

  The fresh pair of livery horses brought from Warminster took the carriage at a good speed along the turnpikes. Repaired in the spring and not yet rutted by the autumn rains, the roads admitted comforta
ble progress and, thereby, easy conversation, but neither of the occupants of the carriage spoke a word. By six o’clock they were in Whitchurch, and the coachman hove in to a posthouse to water his team.

  As they stepped down Howard broke the silence. ‘Look, Hervey,’ he began with a warmth in stark contrast to his earlier cool formality, ‘this is very unsatisfactory for you. I was sent by General Calvert after a great deal of shouting in the commander-in-chief’s office when the Duke of Wellington returned. I allowed my own vexation at having to be about this business to intrude upon my courtesies with your family. I fear they may not forgive it, your sister especially, and I had no right to presume your guilt in the matter, either. I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Thank you, Howard, but it is no matter,’ replied Hervey with a shrug. T was unquestionably hasty in leaving the Horse Guards that morning, but it was not on my own account that I did so. And as for my family, well …’

  ‘Will you be wantin’ t’eat, m’lord?’ called the driver.

  ‘No, we must press on at best speed speed, Allchurch. I want to be through the Piccadilly bar by seven. We will need to change horses in Farnham, I would suppose. I’ll sleep a little now and relieve you of the reins in the early hours if you wish. You are quite sure of the road?’

  ‘Oh ay, y’Lordship: it’s changed not a farthin’sworth since past years. This team’ll get us to Farnham betimes. I’ll prime the pistols now, though: it used to be a bad stretch here to Guildford in the dark.’

  Their progress along the turnpike, with the fullest of moons, was faster even than by day, for there was little carting traffic until they reached the outskirts of London in the early dawn. Allchurch had stopped only once, in Farnham, to change the two bays, and by five they were in Chelsea village, slowed to a walk by the carting traffic into the city and by that already returning with horse dung and night soil, a convenient circular trade. Both passengers were now awake, Howard strangely animated by the bustle, in telling contrast with his languor at Horningsham. Along the King’s Road he jumped out and stopped an ice-cart, empty but for one block under an insulating canvas. He bought three pieces the size of house bricks, throwing one up to Allchurch and then climbing back inside to give one to his charge. Hervey smiled at him for the first time.

  In less than an hour they were passing the bar at Piccadilly and, turning into St James’s Street, Lord John Howard could at last feel at home, for the coach halted outside White’s. ‘We shall use my club to dress,’ he said airily, ‘but first a barber to shave us and then some breakfast – you will have some breakfast?’

  Hervey, for all the anxiety that had been mounting since they had entered the capital’s environs, readily agreed. Indeed, he found himself wanting to talk, in part as distraction from what he now feared must come but also to return Howard’s increasing warmth. ‘It is only my second time here: d’Arcey Jessope once brought me,’ he added.

  ‘Ah, Jessope, poor man. I fear that I fill his empty boots at the Horse Guards. You knew him well?’

  ‘He was an acquaintance in Spain.’

  ‘He was a great friend of Lord Fitzroy Somerset. It was he who had Jessope appointed to Lord Wellington’s staff, you know. I’m told that it was the same sharpshooter who accounted for them both at Waterloo. A cruel irony.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that it was so. I did not see Jessope fall but I saw Lord Fitzroy walking back with his arm shot away.’

  ‘You were there, at that moment!’ asked Howard in some awe.

  ‘We were many. It is just the way,’ replied Hervey. ‘Have you news of Lord Fitzroy?’

  ‘He is recovering well. You have heard, I suppose, that he had his arm amputated without a murmur and called for it to be brought back so that he could remove a ring his wife had given him? But then, such bearing is perhaps only to be expected of a colonel of Foot Guards.’

  Doubtless Howard was unconscious of his presumption, but Hervey thought none the less to deflate him gently. ‘My dear Howard,’ he smiled confidentially, ‘he was first a cornet of light dragoons!’

  And then both laughed.

  They entered the Horse Guards through the unimposing door in the inner arch, the same that had admitted Hervey two weeks before, and climbed the stairs to the offices of the commander-in-chief.

  ‘Good morning, My Lord,’ said the clerk gravely – and bowing – the same clerk on whose account Hervey was now arraigned. Several officers about the place made inaudible asides and stared at him with obvious contempt. His stomach tightened, his eyes began to lose their focus, and the voices around him became strangely disembodied. And yet he remained sensible of his condition and of the proceedings. He had known no feeling like it before – not at Corunna, nor Salamanca, nor even Waterloo. Oblivion had stared at him there, but dishonour faced him now – infamy even.

  ‘General Calvert wishes to see you the moment you arrive, gentlemen,’ Hervey heard the clerk say as he hurried to the double doors of the adjutant-general’s office.

  And before either officer could plead a moment’s pause he was announcing them. Howard beckoned Hervey towards the doors, but he stared back in confusion. Was he meant to surrender his sword and remove his shako?

  ‘Keep them!’ Howard hissed, all but pulling him into the entrance. They managed nevertheless to halt in step and salute in front of the huge mahogany writing-table.

  Sir Harry Calvert was already on his feet, however, and holding out a hand. ‘Mr Hervey, my dear boy, welcome; I am sorry indeed that you have been recalled so early. I do trust it has not been unduly inopportune – the interests of the Service, you know, the interests of the Service.’

  Recalled? Inopportune? Hervey’s astonishment was almost matched by Howard’s, and both were apparent to the general. ‘My dear fellows, whatever can be the matter?’

  Howard motioned Hervey to say nothing, choosing to recount himself the circumstances of their return, which he now did in all its detail, and with unabated particulars of the offending instructions he had acted upon. Calvert was aghast. He walked towards a contrary door and opened it. ‘Colonel Arnold, be so good as to come in here,’ he called, and then, as his military assistant entered with pocket-book open, he turned back to the two lieutenants and frowned. ‘Mr Howard, if you please, repeat for me the information you have this instant apprised me of.’

  When Howard had done so the adjutant-general turned to his colonel and asked him if he did not think it the most shameful thing he had heard. Arnold agreed.

  ‘Then, sir, be pleased to rid me once and for all of that infernal quill-driver. This is one liberty too many.’

  And with that the adjutant-general’s staff was peremptorily reduced. Indeed, such was the noisy relish with which Colonel Arnold carried out his instructions that Hervey began to feel sympathy for the unfortunate clerk.

  ‘Now, gentlemen, sit down, if you please,’ continued General Calvert. ‘There is little time. Mr Hervey, you will recall bringing Lord Wellington’s dispatch two weeks ago. It did not require an acknowledgement but it is the procedure for the clerk receiving dispatches to peruse them at once and to interrogate the bearer if there be any matter for clarification. Mellor did not do so; indeed, it appears that he dealt with it with quite extraordinary laxness. I had begun to suspect as much. He has for some time been quite incapable of remembering his position. I fear his taking a lease on a house in Blackheath has given him certain gentlemanly propensities!’

  Hervey smiled respectfully at the general’s attempt at some levity, while suppressing a growing indignation at the inference that his presence at the Horse Guards was merely an instrument for the demise of the offending civilian.

  ‘Only when the Duke of Wellington himself attended here on Monday was the import of the dispatch revealed, for in it he recounts – in some detail – your remarkable exploits at the late battle we are to know as Waterloo. The duke wished that your signal role be recognized but considered that to mark it by public honours would detract from the honour due to the Pru
ssians. You will understand the sensibilities in these matters, Mr Hervey.’

  Hervey bowed in acknowledgement, his pulse beginning to race.

  ‘He did consider recommending a companionship of the Bath, along with all other commanding officers – since you had commanded your corps in the closing moments of the battle. But so many other junior officers had been required to do the same that he thought this impractical. He has therefore asked, and their lordships of the Treasury have agreed, that you be awarded ex gratia the amount of five thousand pounds.’

  Hervey’s face spoke of his utter shock. His pulse beat faster than he could ever remember, and he was thankful to be seated. He made to speak, but General Calvert lifted up a hand.

  ‘This is, however, conditional on your absolute discretion in the matter. Not a word of the provenance of this sum is ever to escape.’ Calvert’s eyes searched Hervey’s.

  ‘You have my absolute assurance, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘But now to more urgent matters,’ continued the general. ‘You may know of Lord Fitzroy Somerset’s incapacitation. The duke found him an indispensable aide-de-camp and secretary. Moreover, he spoke French with perfect fluency.’

  With fluency, yes, thought Hervey, but with an abominable English accent! But what was this to do with—?

  ‘You speak French with equal fluency, and German, too, it seems?’ suggested Calvert.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied cautiously. Surely he could not be suggesting—

  ‘Well, it is the duke’s wish that you be appointed to his staff forthwith as under-secretary and aide-de-camp. If you are in agreement, you will be given a brevet captaincy – given, mind – which in due season will be confirmed as regimental rank. How say you, Mr Hervey?’

  Hervey sprang up like a flushed partridge.

  ‘I … I am astonished, sir! I … I accept, of course!’

  ‘Well, then, Captain Hervey, there remains but one difficulty. The duke has this day left for Paris, and there are pressing matters for him to be about with both our allies and the French king. Really, my boy, you are required there at once.’ And, turning to his colonel, he asked if a frigate were still stood by.