much beyond the here and now. ‘I had a letter from her in India, thanking me for the position.’
‘You may never do Horningsham a better favour. The school thrives and her charges are devoted to her,’ said Elizabeth, admiringly. ‘You may see her take them each afternoon on walks about the village. The children learn so much of natural history that I should be ashamed myself to be put to the test. I do believe she knows the name of every flower underfoot. And before they walk they have spent three hours and more with the slate — writing and numbers and all manner of things. I have even seen her teaching geometry!’
Hervey was gratified by Elizabeth’s enthusiasm. ‘And the obligations of worship don’t trouble her?’
Henrietta shook her head with the same look of admiration. ‘She is more punctilious in her observance than any but the wardens. And then afterwards she will go to her own chapel. She is the finest of women. You were very right and clever to see the opportunity in her bereavement.’
‘Has she formed any friendships, do you know?’
‘She has dined with us on more than one occasion, but she keeps a distance. In truth, I’m sorry for it, but I cannot but respect her wishes. As for more intimate attachments, I know that one of the farmers who attends her chapel has made her an offer, but so far she has not been inclined to accept it.’
‘Has she spoken at all of her situation? How her husband came to be…’
‘Killed? Yes.’
Hervey felt uneasy. ‘What exactly did she say?’
‘She told me that you somehow felt you bore a responsibility for his death.’
‘She said that?
‘Oh Matthew! Sometimes I think you have not the slightest notion of what a woman can see. Why did you not tell me of it when you came home?’
It was a fair question. What was the purpose of close kin if not to share such doubts? Why did he suppose that, just because the death of Serjeant Strange was on the field of battle, a woman might have no understanding of the turmoils of conscience that followed? And yet perhaps a woman could only see so much. Indeed, a
‘Matthew?’
He hesitated; and then smiled. ‘We must allow that Mrs Strange is a perceptive woman.’
‘Then why don’t we walk together this afternoon, and we shall see her. We might call on her, even.’
‘Yes,’ said her brother, smiling still. ‘I should like that very much.’
Jessye lifted her head from the early shoots of spring pasture and looked at her master without a sound. Hervey had been watching from the gate of the old glebe meadow for a full five minutes before she saw him. The mare was content, at her ease. Somehow, he supposed, she must know that she was back in the place where first she had stretched her legs to a trot — and then more — all those years ago. When was that? All of twelve years before. She had certainly seen and endured more than any village horse hereabouts ever had. Now, as March went out like the lamb, and before the summer swarms of flies had come up from the water meadows, there was no pleasanter place on earth for her to be. And, thought Hervey, Jessye deserved it. After what she had been through only this last year she deserved it. He had vowed months ago that never again would she have to attend the call of the trumpet, let alone the bugle, and now he was sure of it, even though she was the best age for a charger — beyond the worry of splints, her bones being stronger with each year. He would never find another like Jessye for agility and bottom, he told himself, and perhaps even for honesty. But if he cast her now from service she could take her ease without the broken wind and lameness that was the fate of many a trooper which had served too long. She could sate herself on the Wiltshire pasture instead of haphazard campaign fodder, enjoying good timothy from the Longleat hay meadows through the winter, and fresh water from the chalk streams of the downs.
‘I’m going to put a stallion to her, Dan,’ he announced.
Daniel Coates smiled. ‘Now there’s the mark of the man full-grown!’
Hervey looked at him quizzically. The snow-white hair and weathered face, deep-grooved and sun-dried, spoke of age, but for the rest there was nothing that revealed the passing of his many years. Such had been the reward — as well as riches — for Coates’s soldierly virtue and sober living.
‘I’ve observed it many times — the urge to see a foal when a man’s taken from a horse a little too much.’
Hervey made a sort of frown, enough to acknowledge the sentiment.
‘Do you have a stallion in mind?’
Hervey shook his head. ‘More an idea of the horse I want from the foal. About Jessye’s height — half a hand higher, perhaps, but no more.’
‘And a bit more blood?’ suggested Coates, nodding his head as if he could see the reasoning. ‘Jessye not quite as fast as you’d care?’
‘She was never outrun in the field,’ said Hervey quickly, as if to make amends for disloyalty.
‘In which case,’ replied Coates, looking purposely bemused, ‘you want another Jessye!’
Hervey smiled.
‘Have you seen Lord Bath’s improvement stallion?’
‘No, I’ve not. To tell you the truth, Dan, I’ve called on the marquess, but he’s much occupied by affairs in parliament. He went to London at the beginning of the week and I haven’t been to the house since.’
‘When does Henrietta come — Friday you said?’
‘Yes. That is what the express said. But Derbyshire is some way distant, and I don’t suppose the roads at this time will have been much mended.’
Coates clapped an arm on his shoulder. ‘I would dare any odds that yon carriage will move like a fly coach. Besides that, most of the turnpikes’ve been macadamized while you’ve been away. In any case, that young lady would ride astride if she thought she could be here the sooner!’
Hervey smiled again. ‘How can you be so sure?’
Coates was not sporting with him, though. ‘I didn’t tell, did I? She came to Drove Farm to ask me all I knew of the Indies, and how long I thought you might be gone.’
‘When was this?’ pressed Hervey, gratified yet surprised that Henrietta could have shown so much eagerness.
‘Just after she came back from France. Oh, a great occasion it was — a barouche with the Bath arms in my drive!’
Hervey made a little ‘oh’ of disappointment. ‘But that was the better part of two years ago.’
‘Matthew Hervey,’ sighed Coates, clapping his shoulder again. ‘I ’ave been on this earth long enough to recognize certain things when I see them. And, I may tell you, the look in that yon lady’s eyes was not going to go absent in the space of two years. She made me promise to let her know the instant I’d any knowledge of you.
Hervey could have heard nothing so heartening. Michaelmas was only six months ago. ‘I gave the lodge- keeper a half-sovereign to let me know within a quarter-hour of her carriage arriving — by whichever gate!’
‘If I was you I’d sit at the picket post myself from mid-morning o’ Friday,’ said Coates, his smile as wry as if he were still the young dragoon.
Hervey was stung. ‘Dan, don’t suppose that’s not my instinct too. I’d be riding the Fosse Way this minute if I could be sure it’s how she’d come. But it would be indecent — surely? — not to allow her a few moments to herself before receiving me.’
To Hervey’s further dismay, Coates laughed. ‘Oh, don’t mistake me, Matthew. I stand in admiration of such propriety. It’s just that our worlds have been so different. Margaret tramped from one end of Devon to the other when she got news that the regiment was back from America.’
Hervey had never known Margaret Coates. But what he had heard over the years made the revelation less remarkable than it might have been. Nevertheless, Coates’s point was well made, and he envied the freedom for so ardent an advance. ‘Dan, I confess I know little about putting a mare in foal. Might you tell me?’
