Man Of War

last in line, standing with perfect composure, was the child of whom Fairbrother had heard his friend speak so much, yet without once imparting any appreciable knowledge. She advanced, curtsied – which he surmised was the culmination of a morning’s practice – and then burst into excited greeting, throwing her arms wide and hugging her father about his waist before he was able to bend, or to lift her up to embrace. She was her father’s daughter – the likeness was clear – yet so unlike her aunt as to remind Fairbrother that there had been a mother too.

When he had untangled Georgiana’s arms for the moment, Hervey turned. ‘Father, may I present Captain Fairbrother.’

Fairbrother, his hat already in his hand, bowed formally. ‘Good evening, sir.’

Archdeacon Hervey held out his hand, and a warmth suffused his face, so that Fairbrother was certain of his welcome.

‘And my mother,’ (Mrs Hervey curtsied) ‘my sister,’ (Elizabeth both curtsied and smiled with complete naturalness) ‘and . . . Miss Georgiana Hervey, my daughter.’

Georgiana’s forehead and the inclination of her head betrayed curiosity: Fairbrother’s complexion was by no means as dark as some of the sable servants in Bath, or even as some of the Horningsham farm hands at the end of a fierce summer; but neither were his features those of the county. Fairbrother observed, however, that it was curiosity not alarm, nor any measure of distaste. And he could never find himself able to condemn a child of barely ten years, especially one who was able to greet her father formally and then throw off that formality without leave.

She curtsied. ‘Good afternoon, Captain Fairbrother.’ Then she turned to her father again. ‘Where is Private Johnson, Papa?’

‘In London. There are things there for which I had need of him.’

She looked disappointed.

When the chaise, its driver and horses had been attended to – in which the entire assemblage appeared to play a part – they went inside to tea. And then Elizabeth and the housemaid showed them to their rooms (though Hervey’s had been the same since his brother had died), where hot water was brought, and word that they would dine at eight o’clock. The family was all politeness, Fairbrother concluded.

‘I will come for you in an hour,’ said Hervey, when he had satisfied himself that his friend had every requisite, before descending discreetly to enquire of Elizabeth what was the ‘untoward event’ which so disturbed the peace of the parsonage at Horningsham.

To his surprise, however, he found his mother at the bottom of the stairs. She took him into the little sitting room reserved for her. He rarely entered it, and found himself staring at its contents – china figures, samplers, a vast box of sewing, and but one book, whose title he could not make out from where he stood.

‘I am glad you are come, Matthew, and hope it is of no inconvenience, but I am at my wits’ end, and your father is of no use in it whatsoever.’ Mrs Hervey shook her head, sat down and looked at him as if some response were already required.

Hervey, in the circumstances not wanting to smile, yet feeling it necessary to make light of the inconvenience, managed something he reckoned appropriate. ‘I had not any fixed arrangements, Mama.’

Mrs Hervey nodded, satisfied. ‘By the way, your friend – a very gentlemanlike man.’

‘Indeed he is. And a brave officer too.’

‘It is very distasteful that he should be exposed to all this. As exposed he must be.’

Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘Exposed to what, exactly, Mama? What is the cause of my hastening here?’

Mrs Hervey looked distressed again. ‘I cannot know how to begin, for it is too shameful . . .’

Hervey decided there was no course but to sit in silence until she could bear it no longer: any attempt to coax it from her seemed likely only to occasion more procrastinating.

She began dabbing at her eyes (though he saw no actual tears), and sighing with such rapidity that he thought he must reach for the smelling salts. ‘Oh, I have had such palpitations as no person should have to endure!’

‘Mama!’

His exasperation – which Mrs Hervey took to be a very proper alarm – did the trick. She took a deep and expressive breath. ‘Elizabeth says she will not marry Captain Peto.’

‘What? But she has said so. She wrote and accepted his proposal.’

‘I mean that she has changed her mind. She no longer wishes to marry him.’

Hervey was all but dumbstruck. How could it be so? ‘But she has accepted his proposal.’

‘Matthew, I know she has accepted, but now she intends . . . renouncing her acceptance. That is why I wrote to you. I have tried everything with her but she will not have a word of it.’ She produced a second handkerchief, and pitiable sobs.

Hervey’s brow was more thoroughly furrowed than ever his mother had seen it – had she but the capacity to notice. ‘What reason does she give? What reason can she give?’

Mrs Hervey looked out of the window. It was still daylight enough to see the distant elms, and the rooks settling to the nest – in just the manner, it had seemed to her, that at last both her offspring were about to settle. ‘She says’ (sob) ‘she does not love him.’ She began shaking her head again, as if asserting that there was no future to be had for Elizabeth or, indeed, for herself.

Hervey was reduced to uncomprehending silence. A few moments ago he had thought his sister the most wonderful of women, about to become wife to the most wonderful of men. But now . . . And what, indeed, of Peto? He had still no news of his situation: he might be in a chaise from Portsmouth this very minute, returning from battle – that second Trafalgar – in the expectation of the loyal greeting which was rightfully his. It is not a matter that can bide without grave consequence to our reputation and position, his mother had written. He had been inclined to imagine her mistaken in whatever it was. But not now.

‘What is Father’s opinion in this? Has he forbidden it?’

Mrs Hervey’s look was of even more abject despair. ‘I have not had occasion to tell him. He has not been at all well this past month.’

‘And Elizabeth has not told him?’

‘I begged she would not.’

They sat for some time in a state of incapability, Mrs Hervey’s sobs subdued but continuing, until her son found himself able to ask, ‘Has anything . . . particular induced this determination on Elizabeth’s part?’

Mrs Hervey let out such a sigh, as if she might wholly expire. When she spoke it was almost in a whisper. ‘I wish I could say there was not. It is all on account of . . . a certain person.’

Hervey’s frustration with this most disconnected way of proceeding almost got the better of him. ‘Mama, you really must compose yourself and tell me all there is to know, for how otherwise am I to prevail on Elizabeth to change her mind?’

Mrs Hervey began searching about her pockets for smelling salts, but to no avail. She sighed deeply once more, and waved her hands as if in submission. ‘It is all on account of . . . a Mr Heinrici. She met him not two months ago . . . and now she believes she is in love with him and intends marrying him.’

‘Heinrici?’ Hervey could scarcely credit it, not least that Elizabeth should have her head turned by someone with so outlandish a name.

His mother nodded. ‘Or Baron Heinrici, I should call him.’

‘He is German then? Or Dutch?’

‘Yes. He took the lease on the Heytesbury estate last year. Elizabeth went to the house to buy hangings or some such, which he did not wish for.’

His mother’s concern for precise domestic detail, while she remained indifferent to that of real significance, almost deflected Hervey from a right judgement: not only was his sister’s inclination to break off the engagement deeply dismaying, he now saw that she acted in it quite recklessly. It was not in the least like her, and he concluded that there must be some strange imbalance in her humours – not in the old sense, of course (that was so much quackery), but something must very definitely have disturbed her equilibrium. To throw over his old friend, the very finest of men, for . . . who? A new-come German? (Hervey was sure, now, the name was not Dutch.) Who, indeed, was this Baron Heinrici, with his new lease on the agreeable Heytesbury estate? Why, indeed, was he come to Wiltshire at all? What could possibly have turned Elizabeth’s head so, for in everything he had known her undertake she had shown matchless judgement (better, even, than his own)? He must observe her closely at dinner for some