‘Take a seat, Captain Hervey,’ she said, with a smile that had lost nothing of its warmth, for all the incivilities she had abided these past months.
As Hervey and his serjeant settled at a table in the seclusion of a window bay, Caithlin Armstrong went to bring them coffee. It was a respectable enough occupation for a serjeant’s wife, for the habitues of this place were solid citizenry, but Hervey could not help thinking of all that learning put to naught. She had more knowledge than half the fashionables who promenaded about the Regent’s pavilion, yet it would remain closeted because of
‘Does Caithlin know of last night?’
‘She does not.’
‘Then you will have to tell her soon.’
‘I could just wait for the news to pass by the usual means.’
Hervey sighed. ‘I fancy this is not an event to be retailed by the canteen route.’
Armstrong lit his pipe. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure. The canteen often as not gets things in a proper light. It gets the truth from below as well as above — if you know what I mean.’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Hervey thought for a moment. ‘And I counsel you to have a great care. This business will bring down many more than just me.’
‘You ain’t done yet, sir!’ said Armstrong with a shrug.
‘Perhaps I deserve to be, Serjeant Armstrong. Perhaps if I’d waited for the guide—’
‘Aw, come on, sir. That’s not how we were taught. Major Edmonds would’ve tongue-lashed anybody if they’d ever said they were waiting for
It was true enough. ‘But I went at the beach too bald-headed.’
‘We’d lost too much time. We couldn’t have stalked it.’
Armstrong’s eye was what every officer wanted in his serjeant — and more. ‘But the lights, Serjeant Armstrong, the lights.’
Armstrong made to spit, and then thought better of it. ‘What about the lights?’
‘Where would any sentry be posted?’
Armstrong didn’t have to be pressed. ‘That was unlucky. A few seconds more and we’d have had the advantage. And that first ball to fell the revenue man like that — it was the devil’s own.’
‘I was still too slow.’
‘Look, sir, yon was a cannily posted sentry. In any case, we stood our ground and they had to abandon theirs.’
Hervey knew it. But in the end — as Lord Towcester had contemptuously pointed out — all they had succeeded in doing was scattering the woolpacks and sending the French back into the Channel. They were not in possession of a single bit of contraband, wet or dry, or any of its handlers, two of his dragoons were dead, and another three might join them by the day’s end.
‘Finch’ll live, sir, never fear.’
Hervey smiled at the prospect. ‘You know, I believe he was more afraid of being left on that beach than he was at Corunna.’
Armstrong relit his pipe. ‘Dying in the dark like that — they’re all afeard of it. What’s it they say? There are no atheists at night with a muzzle jammed their way!’
‘Thank God that Hill and Greenwood were single men.’
‘But they’d mothers, like as not.’
It seemed perverse to wish instead that, like Johnson, they were sons of the orphanage. Yet Johnson had told him many times that he could never be a soldier with a mother anguishing for him.
Caithlin placed a pot of coffee in front of them. ‘Who had mothers?’
‘None of
‘Jack Armstrong!’ She put her hand to her breast.
‘Just a manner of speaking, love.’ He looked, indeed, a shade chastened. ‘Sit down a minute, lass.’
‘Only a minute, mind.’
They drew up a chair for her.
Hervey lost no time recounting events. By the end, he felt immeasurably better, for the honest company of the Armstrongs was the best of antidotes to Lord Towcester’s spite.
Henrietta returned some hours earlier than expected. She looked troubled as her husband came into her sitting room, and she did not rise to greet him. ‘Princess Charlotte is unwell,’ she sighed, inclining her cheek to him as he bent to kiss her.
Hervey was sorry to hear it, of course, but it seemed strange that this should bring such gloom. ‘What is the cause?’
Henrietta looked at him, surprised. ‘Matthew, she is eight months with child!’
‘But how is she troubled?’
‘She has had two miscarriages, you know.’
Hervey did not know.
‘And she grew very large in the summer, so that Sir Richard Croft had to restrict her diet severely, and draw off blood each day. And I think this has greatly depressed her spirits, for she spoke very freely of her fears.’
‘You saw her?’
‘Only briefly. She had asked me to take tea, along with several others, but then Sir Richard insisted on bleeding her again.’
Henrietta had herself engaged Sir Richard Croft to obstetricate, for he was acknowledged as pre-eminent in that field, as indeed the physician should be who was to deliver the King’s first greatgrandchild.
‘The princess is in the best of hands,’ Hervey pointed out.
‘But ultimately she is in God’s hands,’ sighed Henrietta. ‘And He may have designs that are unfathomable.’
Hervey could not gainsay it, but he saw no profit in contemplating the melancholy fact. He moved his chair closer and took her hand. She smiled at him a little thinly, but even her anxiety could not dull the blush that had come in this third month of her own pregnancy. She had not yet any swelling that he observed, except he fancied in her bosom, and her hair shone like a stallion’s coat. He had never imagined that her attraction to him could increase so.
They kissed long, and in doing so she seemed to forget her disquiet, and he his own troubles. Why might they not forget them a little longer? He rang for Hanks and said they would not dine, and that her ladyship’s maid might be dismissed for the evening.
The next morning, Henrietta’s spirits seemed largely restored, so Hervey hazarded to tell her of the events of the beach, and Lord Towcester’s reaction. She comprehended everything at once — the extent and implications, the limitations and possibilities — and at once she resolved to act. She had extricated Hervey from arrest in Ireland when his excess of conscience and zeal had provoked a jealous authority, and she saw no reason why she should not do the same now. To Henrietta, indeed, the exercise of influence was but a normal part of life. She had friends and she had artfulness, and the deployment of both for the good of her husband was entirely proper to her. True, she had been expecting to use her connections for his advancement rather than for his rescuing, but it was of no matter: the methods were essentially the same.
Hervey was brightened by her spirits. They had, indeed, been restored in the intimacy of their embraces the night before, but that she should be so buoyant now after hearing of his miserable condition seemed remarkable. Princess Charlotte was not mentioned once throughout their breakfast.
‘Shall you rest today, or do we go for a drive?’ he asked, quite carefree, indeed. ‘I have no duties to detain me.’ A dragoon without his sword — he did not count for anything.
‘A drive? Perhaps. Later, though, for I’ve letters to write, and I should not put them off.’
He poured himself more coffee, and then Hanks brought in the
