A Close Run Thing

‘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. T 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 frowned. ‘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?’