A Regimental Affair

Oh, how he might look back now on the happy, unhurried intimacy of the crossing, and wish he had secured that state for ever at Manvers Priory. Was his soldiery so essential a part of that happiness? Henrietta had thought it so, yes; but had he himself truly contemplated it — contemplated it thoroughly? He smiled again as the crossing came back to mind: the dinner at Christmas with all the officers, squeezed around the mess table, Henrietta full of laughter. And then the capering with the other ranks that evening. She had seemed to enjoy both so much. That had been his second Christmas at sea, in three — and never one at home since Shrewsbury. Was this really to be his life for ever? Not for ever, of course, for even an officer of his age must know of his natural mortality. But was it to be the pattern for all of the life he so wanted for them both? How difficult he found it. How difficult when you loved someone both as viscerally and cerebrally as he did — and when that love was soon to bear its first fruit.

The trouble was — and he knew not just in his heart of hearts — there was no appeasing a man like Towcester. The boil, as it were, was forced to come to some ghastly head, where the lance was all that was left. But might a running sore thereby follow? He could not be certain of success with the blade. Yes, the boil would come to a head, and he would surely have to take the lance to it. The last thing he could afford, however, was for that to occur too soon — while Henrietta still carried their child, for he knew full well that her mind was prey enough still to the doubts born of Princess Caroline’s sad confinement. He was no free agent, even in military matters, now that he had taken a wife.

‘You are sure this evening will not fatigue you?’

‘Not excessively,’ replied Henrietta. ‘Really, this baby is being so very good to me.’

Truly, it was. There was a colour about her face always, as if she were the girl again. It stirred him as much as had her blushes in those first, novel days of intimacy after their marriage.

Her eyes seemed just that bit brighter, too, her voice that much richer. Her hair was a silky gloss — the stallion’s coat, where before it might have been the gelding’s. The fact of there being a baby, too, was almost imperceptible beneath her high-bodiced dress, though the swelling beneath the bodice must betoken it to anyone who knew her usual figure.

Hervey put the fur cloak about her, fastened the front, and then put on his own cloak. ‘Very well, then, let us to the Maitlands.’

The distance to the lieutenant-governor’s residence was nothing but a few furlongs, but the cold and the snow made even this a trial on foot, so they were taking a carriage heated by a warmingpan. The scene was not unlike Horningsham when, every few years or so, the village was besieged by a hard winter. Or rather by a month of hard winter instead of the three or even four which came every year here. Snow lay deep over gardens and pasture, and high along the sides of houses, except for the trench-like path cleared to door or stable. The houses, as in Horningsham, were too scattered to be of any support to each other: there was no network of clearance, therefore, and the notion of community (outside the walls of the fort itself) seemed smothered by this great white blanket. But community there was, thanks largely to the efforts of the garrison, who tirelessly cleared the snow from the main thoroughfares after each fall, making them passable to sled and wheel alike. But unlike Horningsham, there were oil lamps along the streets, and these were now lighting Hervey’s and Henrietta’s way to the Maitlands as well as might a full moon of a Wiltshire summer. The snow magnified the power of the little lamps, which in their homely flickers made the bitter outdoors seem so much less forbidding, and the two were received in only a very few minutes later at Government House not greatly chilled.

Henrietta had taken tea that very day with Lady Sarah Maitland, and so their conversation was resumed on the same terms of only a few hours before. Hervey had seen Captain Addinsel for a little while on their first evening, two days ago, but they had yet to have any real opportunity for discourse. First, though, he paid his respects to General Maitland, who chatted agreeably after their introduction. Their exchanges were brief, however, in consequence of the arrival of Lord Towcester, followed at once by the minister from the embassy in Washington — Charles Bagot — and his wife. This gave Addinsel the opportunity to take Hervey aside to meet the other dinner guests, one of whom he found immediately engaging.

As acting superintendent of the Upper Canada division, Major Barry Lawrence wore the green facings — collar, cuffs and lapels — of the Indian Department of British North America. He was a man of about Hervey’s build, in his middle thirties, with a skin the colour of new-tanned leather, and when he learned that Hervey was only lately returned from India, he began an interrogation designed to acquaint himself with any similarities in the native methods of organization and fighting. However, Hervey was eventually able to persuade him to volunteer details of the North American Indian, being, he argued, a rather more pertinent subject to time and place. The superintendent was able to say only a little, though, before dinner was announced, leaving Hervey obviously disappointed.

‘Come to the department tomorrow, at ten, say, and we can resume,’ said Lawrence as they proceeded to the dining room. ‘I’m pleased you take an interest, for it is the most important business to be settled now that we have an agreement on naval matters.’

They were fourteen at dinner, but the table was not large, and there was an intimacy to proceedings despite the formality of the seating arrangements. As a privy councillor, Mr Charles Bagot, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the United States of America, came before an earl in precedence, and so was seated on Sir Peregrine Maitland’s right, with Lady Mary Bagot on his left. Across the table from her husband sat Lady Sarah Maitland, with Lord Towcester on her right. Henrietta was to the minister’s right, and Hervey almost opposite. For the first courses Hervey chatted with Charles Addinsel, who sat adjacent at the end of the table, and then to the widow of a commanding officer of the New Brunswick Fencibles, who had remained in York when her late husband’s regiment had returned east. From time to time he stole a glance at Henrietta. Once, she caught his look and held it several seconds, reddening about the neck in the way she did when they embraced. Her eyes promised him they would embrace again that evening, for Henrietta’s ardour was in no degree diminished by her condition. Indeed, if anything it seemed intensified. And he himself was no less invigorated by it, for all the little blooms of fecundity — the swellings and ripeness — roused every instinct to be one with her.

By the time the sweet dishes were served, the conversation had become enlarged; or rather, the talk at the centre of the table was being listened to attentively by the guests at the ends. Lady Sarah Maitland leaned forward, turning towards Hervey, and smiling very prettily said she understood that he, too, had been at the Battle of Waterloo. ‘And I wonder, did you see anything of my husband’s guardsmen?’

The table fell silent. Lady Sarah was the same age as Henrietta, and some fifteen years or so her husband’s junior. Her enquiry was of a childlike innocence and pride, and not one which even modesty might resist. ‘I did indeed, ma’am,’ was the best Hervey could manage, however.

Sir Peregrine, who had hitherto borne a somewhat distant, patrician look, now softened, even seeming to smile at the remembrance.

‘Did you observe when the duke bid them stand up?’ asked Lady Sarah.

‘Yes, ma’am. We were not so very far on their left at that moment.’

‘Then tell me how it appeared, for I have heard several accounts,’ she pressed.

‘Well, ma’am, it was towards the end of the day, as you will recall, and Bonaparte had become desperate and sent his imperial guards at our centre. They marched towards where there was a gap in our line of infantry, with only a brigade of light cavalry seeming to stand between them and Brussels. And just as it seemed they would be able to take the ridge and drive on to that city, up stood a whole brigade of guardsmen which I swear I had not even seen until that moment, so perfectly still had they remained in the corn.’

‘It was an unusual drill movement,’ Sir Peregrine acknowledged.

‘And then they swept the French back down the hill?’ prompted Lady Sarah.

‘Indeed, ma’am. It was the end. The Duke of Wellington gave the order for the whole line to advance.’

Lady Sarah smiled adoringly at her husband.

‘There was some very apt musketry from others at that moment, we should not forget,’ said Sir Peregrine. ‘The Sixth had a good gallop at the French hill, too, as I remember, Hervey.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who was commanding at that stage? Lord George Irvine was with the Prince of Orange, was he not?’

‘Yes he was, sir. I am afraid our major was killed and all our captains accounted for. The command had devolved upon me in the closing minutes.’

Henrietta now bore the same look of admiration as the general’s wife. But she had also seen the look on Lord Towcester’s face: distaste — an intense envy, indeed.

‘And Captain Hervey must have performed those duties very well,’ said Lady Mary Bagot to Sir Peregrine,