duke sat. ‘To Lady Combermere’s left, she in the blue.’
Hervey saw a general officer who looked twice Lady Katherine’s age. ‘Forgive me, madam, but what is your husband’s appointment?’
‘He is Governor of Alderney.’
‘Ah.’ Hervey was not a polished conversationalist — he knew all too well — but even so, this was an appointment that did not make for a ready reply.
‘
Hervey returned her smile involuntarily. Her eyes caught the candlelight and for an instant tempted him to some equally mischievous reply. He had had only the one glass of champagne, though, and he thanked God for it, too. ‘That must be very agreeable, madam. The climate, especially.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Captain Hervey. I visit there but very infrequently, and then only for a very short time.’
Hervey knew he was making a poor show of it, and the knowledge did not improve matters. ‘Your husband is not resident there, then?’
‘Indeed he is! This is one of his few returns. He says that since the war there is little to engage him from a military point of view, so he can indulge his passion, which is fishing. There is nothing he likes more than to spend the day in a little boat among lines and pots and I know not what.’
Sole, only half warm, had followed the soup, and then there was partridge. And all the while Lady Katherine pressed Hervey to reveal his exploits in the war, explaining that her husband had nothing to tell her of but the toings and froings of ships past his islands. And all the while Hervey tried equally to deflect the conversation to something less sanguinary. The effort was so great that he ate little, sipped his wine perhaps too often, and was altogether relieved when at last the arrival of the sweet confections allowed the officer on Lady Katherine’s right to engage her attention, and him to seek relief with the ADC. However, the ADC was engrossed in conversation to his left, so Hervey instead occupied himself with a survey of the room.
They were thirty-four at table. Besides two or three junior officers such as him, there was an equal number of generals in their braid and ladies in their finery. Hervey mused that each in his or her own way had dressed to please or gain the attention of their host. There was no end of pleasing him, at the most exalted and the most personal levels alike. The fruits of victory at Waterloo were bountiful indeed. The gifts alone spoke volumes: the marble nude of Bonaparte from the Prince; the Portuguese service, a thousand pieces of silver and gilt; the Saxon service, finest Meissen; the Prussian service, Berlin green china, with its magnificent obelisk centrepiece depicting the duke’s orders and titles, perforce incomplete, for the honours still came; the Deccan service; the Egyptian service; paintings, furniture, statuary, porcelain of every description; field marshal’s batons of half a dozen nations and more. And many hundreds of thousands voted by parliament so that the duke might acquire a country seat, as Marlborough before him had acquired Blenheim. Hervey could scarcely believe that he himself had refused the duke what little he had to offer.
‘Do you enjoy your evening, Captain Hervey?’
He turned to the ADC and smiled. ‘Yes, I do, very much.’
‘Let us hope His Grace does, for he has been in high dudgeon these past three days.’
Hervey knew it was not a rare occurrence for the duke to be discomposed, but he had had no intimation of ill humour on arrival. Quite the opposite in fact. ‘Indeed? How so?’
‘Do you know what day it is?’
‘No.’
‘I think you must. The duke’s time in India?’
Now that he was given the hint, the answer came quickly enough. ‘The battle of Assaye.’
‘Just so. The duke had invited Sir John Vandeleur to be guest of honour, as colonel of the Nineteenth Light Dragoons, whose victory it was, in large part. But he declined in protest of the disbandments.’
Hervey was intrigued. He had heard that the Twenty-first were to disband — the Twentieth had gone already — but nothing more. In any case, the Nineteenth, the heroes of Assaye, had only lately become lancers — with the Sixteenth, the first in the King’s service. ‘I am very sorry for it, on all accounts.’ There were evidently other men, then, who were not disposed to obliging the duke in every particular.
‘Indeed. So we must hope that the ladies are sufficiently diverting this evening.’
Hervey glanced up and down the table. ‘For the main part, I should say there is no doubt of it!’
The ADC smiled and nodded while tucking into a cheesecake with surprising gusto after all that had gone before. ‘Lady Katherine is engaging company,’ he suggested between mouthfuls.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Hervey, a little unsure. ‘We have had plenty of conversation.’
‘She greatly enjoys company when she rides every day.’
Hervey heard the suspicion of a warning, but before he could press the ADC to more, Lady Katherine turned again to him. ‘We ladies are being bidden to retire. Will you attend upon my husband and me afterwards, Captain Hervey — when, that is, Colonel Warde has done with you?’
‘With great pleasure, madam.’ He rose as a footman drew back her chair.
She smiled warmly at him. ‘Until later, then.’
Hervey turned back to the ADC, but that officer was already moving to attend on the duke, as, it seemed, was the officer who had been on Lady Katherine’s right. So he himself closed further towards the middle of the table, to begin an interesting discourse with a peer, whose name he did not catch, about the prospects of reform. But soon the several conversations deferred to the duke’s, in which he expressed himself glad to see so many of rank and distinction at his table, that he considered it a worthy ‘inauguration’ of his new dining room, and that he intended hereupon to hold a banquet each year in commemoration of the battle of Waterloo.
The unreforming peer on Hervey’s right evidently wanted some association with Waterloo too, if only in conversation (for he did not have the look of one who had ever served). But he sadly misjudged his subject. ‘Did you have a good view of the battle, Duke?’
The duke’s benevolent smile turned at once to a look like an angered hawk. Hervey felt himself trying to lean as far away from his neighbour as he could.
‘I generally like to see what I am about,’ came the icy reply.
It fair chilled the company. Hervey did not relish an encounter with the duke in such a humour.
The day was saved by the only man at the table who could do so. ‘And thank the great God that you do see what you are about, Duke, for I am in no doubt England would not have triumphed without you!’
The great man turned to his right. ‘Thank you, Bathurst.’ He said it gravely rather than with any surprise or gratitude. He had heard as much many times.
Earl Bathurst, Secretary for War and the Colonies for the past seven years, had been raised in Apsley House, indeed had sold it to the duke’s elder brother, but it was not the time to make any reference to it. ‘And we thank you for your magnificent hospitality this evening.’
There were tentative ‘hear, hears’ from around the table.
The duke nodded. Then he rose suddenly. The gentlemen were to rejoin the ladies, and sooner than both had expected.
In the drawing room, Hervey refused any more wine and began to contemplate instead his opportunity to take leave. Colonel Warde had not sought him out, and he had just judged the moment right to approach the duke; but to his considerable surprise he saw Lord Combermere himself striding across the room towards him.
‘Captain Hervey, I fear I did not recognize you at first. It is a long time since that day at Toulouse, and indeed Paris. Do you recall?’
Hervey smiled broadly at the recognition, and at Combermere’s engaging humility. ‘Indeed I do, sir. Of course I do!’
‘You’re back with the Sixth, I gather?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He presumed ‘back’ referred to the assignment in India.
‘Lankester’s a good man. The Towcester business — dreadful, quite dreadful.’
Hervey was astonished that Combermere should know of it, but he had not time to reply before a hand grasped the general’s arm. ‘What do you say to this officer, Combermere? He refuses an order.’
Combermere threw his head back. ‘Hah! I should think he has very good cause, Duke!’
Hervey felt the same hawklike gaze on him as he had seen at table.
‘That is just as I told my secretary. I shall say good night then, Hervey. I wish you fortune in the east.’ He
