A Regimental Affair

have word well before.’

She seemed prepared to believe his assurance for the time being. ‘In any case, I have no cause for fear now you are with me.’

It had been the briefest of departures from her habitually carefree manner, but it registered with her husband nonetheless. Hers was the vulnerability of a world suddenly not impregnable. Like as not, in her years in the shelter of the Longleat acres she had never seen anything more violent than a carter’s whip to a horse, or heard a curse stronger than a blade’s dealt a bad hand at cards. But why then should she seem so fearful? He knew little of her childhood before Longleat, of course, but he hardly supposed it had been an unhappy one.

‘We’re putting the improver to Jessye again today.’ He tried to give the change of subject as uncontrived an air as possible. ‘The stud groom thinks it should be well this time.’ Jessye had failed to come into foal a month ago, but the stud groom had said he doubted she was truly in season. ‘He’s got her a teaser this time.’

Henrietta was smiling again. ‘Do I tease you still, Matthew?’

‘Ay,’ he grinned, ‘but different from how you did!’

They kissed, but the door opened and a footman informed him that Private Johnson had Jessye ready for the stallion.

‘You had better go to your other love,’ sighed Henrietta, refastening the buttons on his coat.

‘Have you seen the improvement stallion?’ he asked, as he made to leave. ‘He is quite magnificent.’

‘No. May I come with you?’

‘Of course. He’s one of the handsomest things you’ll ever see. He has a coat like polished ebony. There’s something in a stallion that—’

He was going to tell her there was something in a stallion which there wasn’t in a gelding. ‘Yes, Matthew,’ she interrupted, frowning. ‘I believe I can understand that much!’

He did not redden this time.

Johnson led Jessye in hand to the big yard used for the coverings. Straw was spread deep and for a moment the mare looked as though she had a mind to roll, but he managed to keep her up, and stood close to quieten her. The stud groom brought the stallion directly, and with scarcely a hand needed to help, the big horse went to her.

Hervey had left Henrietta at the saddle room, expecting her to return to the house. He didn’t know she watched from a window; not until he went back afterwards and found her waiting for him. She looked him full in the face — an admiring look, a look that said she understood him a little more. ‘What a thing is nature,’ she said. It was a distinctly reverent statement, but also determined. Nature’s blush suffused her own face, and she took his hand and led him from the room.

Later they rode out together, up past the hanger towards the picket post and around Arn Hill. Hervey thought he could do this for ever, and said so. Henrietta thought he could not, and said so too. Indeed, she hoped he could not, ‘For I did not choose to marry a squire!’ But for the moment, though, there was nothing that either of them would rather do than ride to the downs. There was something about two horses in a landscape. Two was a number like no other. Three, four, ten, twenty, or even one: it was all much the same. But two was different, for it spoke of intimacy. They rode for a full half-mile without saying anything, content to let nature speak: a sky with scarcely a cloud, the downs without the hand of man. And now they were joined by swallows — two dozen or more. They dived and turned and soared all about them, swooping so close and low as to seem certain to collide with the horses’ legs, though neither Hervey’s grey nor Henrietta’s little bay mare took the slightest notice.

‘I have never seen the like,’ said Henrietta. ‘Never seen them fly so. They are enchanting. Why do they accompany us do you think?’

‘Perhaps they just like it.’

‘Oh, I hope that is so, Matthew,’ she said, smiling and looking about her. ‘I should like to think that a bird is as capable of taking such simple pleasure. I have never looked down at a swallow before, only up. They are so beautiful! I should much rather we stay watching them than go to Lady Hore’s tonight.’

She had once told him that a day without a party was not worth recording in her journal. What a change this was. Or had she simply concealed this side hereto? ‘Do you see how they spread their fork-tails as they turn?’ He gestured with his whip. ‘It must help them veer so acutely.’

‘And they have flown all the way from Africa! It is almost too much to believe. So far that… You have not been to Africa, have you, Matthew?’

‘No, not to Africa. Around Africa. I saw its shores once or twice, but very distantly.’

‘I should like to see Africa,’ said Henrietta, still watching the swallows with a look of semi-wonder.

At no time had she ever expressed, within his hearing, any desire to travel beyond Italy or St Petersburg. He had even had his doubts, in Paris two summers ago, that she could be persuaded to come with him to India. He made no reply.

She watched the swallows for a full five minutes without a sound. Then she sighed very contentedly and turned to him. ‘I am so very, very happy with you, Matthew. I hardly know myself. I see things I have never seen before.’

‘And I, too,’ he assured her. ‘I do not believe that I truly knew what life was before now — before daring to admit that I loved you, that is, for I believe I have loved you a very long time.’

She smiled at him reassuringly. She knew what trials had attended that declaration. They rode on a while longer in happy silence. ‘But Matthew, there is one thing I have been meaning to ask. The morning after our wedding — why did Daniel Coates wish to see you so urgently?’

Hervey sighed. He had decided against telling her at the time because it seemed so ill-matched to the occasion; afterwards he had found the notion hard to share with her since it could only increase her anxiety for him, and nothing she might say could ameliorate his own misgivings.

‘Tell me, Matthew. It evidently disquiets you,’ she insisted.

He told her what Coates had said about his commanding officer.

She looked puzzled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I think that I did not want to distress you — especially at that time.’

‘But Matthew, if something distresses you, then you must permit me to ease that distress. And I cannot do so unless you tell me all.’ She turned and looked at him direct. ‘There can be no secrets between us now.’

She had still the appearance of contentment, but her voice carried an insistence which left Hervey in no doubt that she intended them to be a couple in every sense, in duty and disappointment alike. Indeed, Henrietta intended taking her marriage vows with the utmost seriousness, even if she had already largely forgotten their actual words.

Hervey could only feel chastened, but then encouraged, for hers would be a brave course for a soldier’s wife at the best of times — and these were not the best of times. He smiled, stood in his stirrups, leaned out and kissed her. It said all there was to say, and in a manner which entirely delighted her.

CHAPTER SEVEN. MANOEUVRES

Hounslow, three weeks later

‘I well see your dismay, gentlemen,’ said Major Joynson, ‘but we had expected nothing more than the usual administrative inspection. That is why there have been no field days.’

The troop captains were complaining of the lack of drill they had had, in the light of the major general’s wishes, just received, that next Thursday’s annual inspection should take the form of a survey of horses, clothing and equipment in the barracks, and then a day’s manoeuvres on Chobham Common.

All the captains but Hervey, that is, for he had not the slightest notion how handy his troop was in the field, nor for that matter how it and B Troop worked together as a squadron. He had been at its head only since Monday,