Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears

by Allan Mallinson

  The fiance was a tall, spare man – Hervey thought him his side of thirty – who bowed awkwardly and found it difficult to look him in the eye. He imagined him a poor catch for the young Miss —, although it was possible that he had considerably more money than breeding (Hervey noted that his coat was unquestionably well-cut).

  Then came Sir Charles’s country attorney, a gentleman, a little younger than his host and with the easy, unassuming manners of the earlier age, and an open face, an easy smile – a thoroughgoing picture of decency and common sense. And his wife was refined and equally at home. It was soon revealed that they had lost a son with the Twenty-eighth at Badajoz.

  ‘Might you have known him, Major Hervey?’

  ‘I may well have made his acquaintance, sir. Forgive me, but we were many in Spain. But Badajoz was a truly desperate affair. I do not think there were many officers in the infantry who were not wounded that night.’

  The attorney maintained his enquiring smile throughout the exchange, his wife perhaps did less so, but there was no sadness, just a tender acceptance, as if it were the duty of a family such as theirs to officer the regiment which bore the county’s name, and to accept the same fate as so many others who might not have their resource or advantage. Hervey wondered if the pain had eased in the dozen years since the siege. He had no experience of a grieving parent. When his own brother had died – in very different circumstances – he had been far away, and when he had returned there had only been happiness at his own safe homecoming.

  When the attorney and his wife moved on to pay their respects to the representative of the cloth, Hervey was able to stand back from things a little and observe Kezia Lankester. She was, barring the betrothed daughter, the youngest in the party, and yet her self-possession was very marked. She took her leave of Lady — with cool assurance, spoke a few words to the happy couple, rather cut the fiance when she considered their conversation was sufficient and then took up easily with her hostess. He could, perhaps, see what others meant when they spoke of a lack of warmth, but he knew at least as well as any man what the early and violent loss of a marriage partner might do; and he had no reason to presume that her love – indeed he might suppose passion – for the late Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ivo Lankester had been one jot less than his own had been for Henrietta.

  At dinner they sat beside each other. The fashion being to dine ‘promiscuously’ – male alternating with female – there was nothing suggestive in this. Indeed, had the two unattached guests not been seated together it would have been something of a discourtesy. When Hervey had dined at Lord George Irvine’s on returning from Lisbon, Lady Lankester had sat on his left. He had spent the first twenty minutes or so talking to the wife of a member of parliament, on his right, while trying to think what he might decently say to the widow of his late commanding officer when the time came. This evening Kezia Lankester sat on his left again, but although he was no longer quite the stranger, he had cause for even more unease. He had determined on marriage and yet he had not the faintest idea what were her thoughts on remarrying, nor the remotest notion of how eligible she would consider him. He chided himself. It was absurd that he should feel thus, a man who would face the King’s enemies, yet who shrank from one of the King’s subjects – and a subject ten years his junior at that!

  Lady Cockerell had a French chef evidently keen to display his skill. Monsieur Anton’s hors d’oeuvres – tunny and salmon canapés (cold), oysters with shrimp butter, oyster tarts, grilled oysters with herbs, cheese fritters and cheese puffs, all hot – engaged them a full half-hour, during which the untitled squire’s wife was eager for Hervey’s opinion on the prospects of her various nephews and more distant relatives who were in uniform, in which he endeavoured to oblige her while with increasing desperation trying to think how when the moment came he might open the conversation with Kezia Lankester.

  The fish course came and went – a shrimp bisque, and salmon cooked in champagne – and still the untitled squire’s wife had relatives and acquaintances in red to speak of. Only when a procession of footmen brought the entrées did Hervey find himself without conversation at last, his interlocutor having been taken up by the Reverend Mr Castle in the space of a footman’s intervention between them.

  Hervey was now left with nothing to distract him from the necessity of thinking of a favourable opening with the woman he intended marrying. His mind, however, was yet a bewildering blank. He watched as each magnificent entrée was brought to the table: boned quail filled with chicken mousse, ragout of pigeon with shallots and button mushrooms, braised sirloin of beef with stuffed tomatoes, stuffed mushrooms, potato croquettes, a vegetable mould and warm cucumbers in cream. Lady Cockerell’s dazzling display of culinary hospitality served only to make his quest for an apt line more difficult.

  Kezia Lankester turned to him and touched his sleeve. ‘I am so glad to see you here, Major Hervey. We have had no opportunity to speak freely since India. My late husband thought very highly of you, you know.’

  Hervey had to make a considerable effort to hide his relief. Her speaking thus was a gesture of much charm, without (it seemed to him) undue superiority, though perhaps with an underlying, rather distant formality. She was, he had to remind himself, ten years his junior, for all her apparent self-possession. ‘You are kind to say so, madam.’

  ‘No, Major Hervey,’ she replied, with something of a smile. ‘It was not meant as a kindness. Would you tell me … do you know how my late husband died?’

  Hervey was not ready for this turn. He had supposed, somehow, that it had all been said in India – by the regimental major, perhaps. ‘Well … that is … yes, I do. I … indeed I saw him fall.’

  Kezia Lankester now looked down at her plate. ‘I imagine he was to the fore?’

  ‘Oh, he was. Indeed he was. He was at the head of one of the trenches closest the walls of Bhurtpore.’ He was surprised she needed to ask.

  ‘And was his death … was it done quickly?’

  Hervey sighed. ‘It was instant, madam.’

  ‘You are certain of it, Major Hervey? You do not say it just for my sake?’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘I am certain of it.’

  ‘So he was unable to say anything by way of … last words.’

  ‘I am afraid not.’

  He could not determine whether his reply was a comfort or the exact opposite. He wondered why she was so concerned with last words. They were rarely, in his experience, especially noble, and frequently they were entirely profane.

  She seemed now to rally. ‘And how do you like your command? Poor Major Strickland: I thought him a fine man.’

  Hervey was momentarily thrown off what passed for his stride by the bitter-sweet in the connection of command and his old friend’s death. ‘Well, I … command of one’s regiment, even temporarily, is the greatest satisfaction.’

  ‘But Lady Somervile tells me you may have the lieutenant-colonelcy proper soon.’

  Hervey wished Emma had not. ‘I very much hope it may be so, Lady Lankester, but there are many formalities.’

  ‘And your daughter, as I recall: she is well?’

  Again, the sudden turn she took broke his stride. But he had surrendered the initiative …’She is well, thank you.’ He tried to form a question by return: her own daughter—

  ‘And she is, as I remember, with your sister in Wiltshire?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He was now determined to wrest back the initiative, at least partially: ‘And you will be staying in Gloucestershire long?’

  But wresting was hardly necessary, for she seemed perfectly content to surrender the initiative. Glad, even. And so the initiative remained with him for the rest of their dinner, his fluency in finding question after question quite taking him by surprise, until, after a while, there was no initiative but free conversation – and on matters other than the here and now, the weather or family, the subjects by which a little prior study usually served in otherwise faltering table-talk. He was even composed
enough to observe her closely as they spoke. He had admired her complexion when they had dined at Lord George Irvine’s: it was fair, and she had applied a blushing stick, no doubt to relieve her mourning pallor, and he fancied she had again this evening. But soon he concluded that her face was more naturally suffused with colour, and altogether warmer than that evening in January. He found himself admiring the gentle swell of her breast, and although her lips were decidedly thinner than Kat’s – or for that matter Vaneeta’s – he began wondering, too…

  ‘Whom do you think shall be prime minister?’

  He woke sharply. He had heard the question plainly but evidently not what had preceded it. Desperately, he used one of the devices Kat had taught him. ‘Whom do you think shall be prime minister?’

  She smiled (did she recognize the trick?). ‘I asked first, Major Hervey!’

  Great heavens, he thought, and with admiration: this woman was assured! And her protest was not without a certain teasing – which these days he recognized as encouragement rather than the opposite. ‘Sir Eyre Somervile believes it might be the Duke of Wellington.’

  She frowned purposefully. ‘Surely not, Major Hervey. Would the duke fit that office?’

  ‘You mean, ma’am, may a soldier do ought but bark orders?’

  She smiled again. ‘Would you imagine the duke to be given to discussion?’

  ‘I know him but a little, but I know him to take counsel, and even his time in the Peninsula required a good deal of diplomacy.’ He tapped the table. ‘Now, ma’am, perhaps you will tell me your opinion.’

  She gave it freely and in such a manner as to command his considerable attention. He could not help but think that although Kat would have been able to say as much, it would have been hearsay and the whispered opinion of high-placed confidants. With Kezia Lankester it was very evidently her own thinking. And he liked what he saw of her serious mind.

  At length came Monsieur Anton’s desserts – baskets of glacé fruit and plates of croquembouche, charlotte russe, Nesselrode pudding, moulded jellies, coffee custard, praline and orange ices, chocolate gâteaux. Kezia Lankester was not greatly tempted, nor seemingly very impressed. Hervey had noticed how sparingly she ate throughout (neither had she drunk more than half a glass of hock), and wondered if it were yet a feature somehow of her mourning. But when their conversation resumed, he found himself more and more attracted by both her appearance and spirit, and encouraged by her complete ease of manner. He was disappointed when the conversation opened up to the table: it was, besides anything else, much the duller, despite the wit of a dozen more. And then once the table as a whole was engaged she made no attempt at further vocal contact with him, nor with her eyes – not even when they rose to let the ladies retire. He was suddenly anxious once more. Was it true indifference on her part? He was sure it could not have been shyness. Or perhaps she had thought that she – or he – had spoken too freely? As he sat down again he was wholly uncertain of whether she had in fact dismissed him.

  When the gentlemen were all done with cigars and the price of corn – close on half an hour – they rejoined the ladies. Chairs had been arranged meanwhile so that the drawing room was now an auditorium, with a forte-piano and a harp at one end. Lady Cockerell at once began ushering her guests to their seats. After announcing that her house guests would provide a little diversion, she herself – very gamely, thought Hervey – began the entertainment, playing two rondos (which he had heard before but could not put a name to) and then a composition of her own incorporating several popular songs that he knew quite well. She played skilfully, earning vigorous applause, and hearty appreciation from the squires. Next came her husband in a worthy, if reedy, rendering of two Neapolitan songs sung in Italian to Lady Cockerell’s accompaniment. There was again hearty applause, perhaps more in appreciation of hearing something so apparently out of character in their host as for any true appreciation of his voice; but there was no encore. Then it was the turn of the Reverend and the Honourable Mrs Castle (the advowson being Sir Charles’s, Mr Castle was deemed a permanent house guest). Mrs Castle played accompanying harp, and her husband sang something about virtue, and then about perseverance, and in a voice that Hervey recognized was capable though not to his mind attractive.

  Next was Lady Lankester. An older man in a powdered wig and round spectacles came into the room, bowed and sat at the forte-piano.

  ‘Must have stayed from last night,’ said Somervile to Hervey, more or less sotto voce. ‘There was a regular band.’

  Lady Lankester bowed to her hostess and announced: ‘“Se mai senti spirarti sul volto”, from La Clemenza di Tito, by Christoph Gluck.’

  Hervey was at once all attention. He had heard of Gluck. He had no idea that Kezia Lankester possessed a voice that encompassed opera.

  The forte-pianist began the introduction, a gentle melody in simple time, and Kezia Lankester entered confidently and with one of the clearest, sweetest voices Hervey thought he had ever heard. It was a slow aria, but with considerable range, and she sang it expressively. Hervey was charmed. He led the applause.

  ‘She’s been rehearsing all day,’ said Somervile, as if he thought it mildly bad form.

  Hervey frowned. ‘I thought it enchanting.’

  ‘My dear Lady Lankester, we must press you to an encore,’ said their host.

  Lady Lankester smiled indulgently. ‘Very well, Sir Charles.’ She turned to the forte-pianist.

  He had already placed a new sheet of music on the rest.

  She turned back to her audience. ‘“Di questa cetra in seno”, from Il Parnaso confuso, again by Christoph Gluck.’

  It was, once more, a slow melody, but in triple time and with a range perhaps even greater than the first. As before she sang with real expression, and Hervey wished very much that he had been able to understand the Italian.

  The applause was even stronger. ‘She can sing, I grant you that,’ said Somervile.

  Hervey was now inclined to ascribe her earlier sudden indifference to nerves, in anticipation of these choice pieces – except that she sang so effortlessly he could see no reason for them. Perhaps it was mere … preoccupation?

  The forte-pianist took his bow, Kezia Lankester took another, and they left the ‘stage’ to the final diversion.

  ‘Well, a cavallo,’ said Somervile, in a resigned but by no means apprehensive way, taking his wife’s hand and leading her forward.

  Emma took her place at the forte-piano, while from behind a curtain her husband took a hunting whip and horn, sounding the latter to the immediate acclamation of the two squires.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ began Somervile, stentor-like. ‘From the sublime heights of Italian opera I take you to the English countryside, and Mr Henry Fielding’s “A Hunting We Will Go”, with music by … I forget whom.’

  There were appreciative Yoicks! from the squirearchy.

  Emma began the jaunting little 6/8 introduction, Somervile sounded the off, slapped his thigh with the whip and took up the boisterous verse:

  The dusky night rides do-own the sky,

  And ushers in the morn:

  The hounds all join in glorious cry,

  The hounds all join in glorious cry,

  The hu-untsman wi-inds his ho-o-o-orn,

  The huntsman winds his horn.

  Emma joined in the refrain:

  And a-hunting we will go,

  A-hunting we will go,

  A-hu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-unt,

  A-hu-unting we will go!

  Somervile sounded the off again, and Emma took up the second verse:

  The wife around her hu-usband throws

  Her arms, to make him stay;

  My dear, it rains, it hai-ils, it blows;

  My dear, it rains, it hai-ils, it blows;

  You ca-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-not,

  You cannot hunt today.

  Somervile resumed the refrain:

  Yet a-hunting we will go.

  A-hunting we will go,

  A-hu-
u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-unt,

  A-hu-unting we will go!

  And then the next verses:

  The uncaverned fox like li-ightning flies,

  His cunning’s all awake,

  To gain the race he e-eager tries,

  To gain the race he e-eager tries,

  His fo-orfeit li-ife the sta-a-a-ake,

  His fo-orfeit life the stake.

  Yet a-hunting we will go.

  A-hunting we will go,

  A-hu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-unt,

  A-hu-unting we will go!

  At last his strength to faintness worn,

  Poor Reynard ceases flight;

  He stopped dramatically and sounded the kill – and then Emma joined for the finale:

  Then hungry, homeward we-e return,

  Then hungry, homeward we-e return,

  To fe-east awa-ay the ni-i-i-ight,

  To feast away the night!

  And a-hunting we do go.

  A-hunting we do go,

  A-hu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-unt,

  A-hu-unting we do go!

  The applause was long and vigorous. Hervey beamed with sheer pleasure at so uninhibited a performance. Here was a couple as perfectly matched as may be, full of refinement in the purlieus of the Court, dazzling in learning and conversation at Fort William, and yet as lusty as Fielding’s best in the shires. At that moment he would have thrown in everything to go with them to the Cape.

  Only Kezia Lankester seemed not to share the ebullience of the chase, though she applauded politely, smiling. No doubt it was a proper sensibility, thought Hervey, for the others were in familiar company, and of spouses, whereas she was not.