Man Of War

Hervey was a trifle disconcerted by the abrupt termination of their pleasant stroll, but he understood that Kezia had responsibilities in the absence of her parents. And, too, she had a very proper pride in her music, an admirable sense of obligation to those she would play for. ‘Of course, of course. Let us walk back together.’

Hervey found the prospect of the soiree increasingly unappealing as they drove through Knebworth park. Kezia had no doubt intended the opposite in her picture of the evening, but it sounded to him an affair in which he would find little diversion. Their reception at the house was certainly warm enough: Knebworth’s chatelaine was extravagantly welcoming (Fairbrother, he marked, seemed entirely at his ease), but his immediate impression of the company was of a menage altogether too studied.

Knebworth was, like Sezincote, a perfectly ordinary English house which had been ‘decorated’ to appear other than it was. Unlike Sezincote, however, which had been turned into something that would have looked entirely natural on the banks of the Hooghly, Knebworth, with its Gothic windows, battlements and turrets, looked as if it had been transported from the Rhine. Kezia explained that Mrs Bulwer Lytton had inherited a dilapidated mansion from her father, and that, in the words he, Hervey, had used, ‘her taste and her means coincided’: she had pulled down three sides of a most uncouth and sombre quadrangle to make a more manageable house out of the fourth. ‘Old General Bulwer being now dead, too, Elizabeth is free at last of a most unhappy marriage,’ she added with some asperity. ‘She is finally able to pursue her true vocation, which is painting and poetry.’

It had not, therefore, been the most consoling of drives. And by the time Kezia had told him that their hostess’s father had brought her up on the principles of Rousseau, which had meant her curtsying to the gardener’s boy, he was in something of a mental lather. Especially since Kezia gave him to expect that there would be a good many more bluestockings than those of either sex with whom he might have easy conversation.

Mrs Bulwer Lytton greeted her guests in a voice so old-fashioned (though she was no great age) that Hervey did not quite know what startled him the more – that or her strangely medieval dress. She smiled and called him ‘darling boy’, then scowled and (none too teasing, he fancied) said, ‘but you are naught to try to take away this jewel from among us’, tapping Kezia’s arm with her fan.

Try? Despite his wonder at their hostess, it was all he could do to stop himself saying that he did not try: it was already accomplished. But a lifetime’s deference to age and rank stood in his way. ‘I am a fortunate man, ma’am,’ he replied, with an almost exaggerated bow. He hoped Kezia would play her part in this, but he saw that she had become preoccupied, rather in the manner he had observed that evening at Sezincote as the time for singing drew close. He must accustom himself to it, for composed though her manner invariably was, Hervey knew there was such a thing as artistic temperament – what was vulgarly called ‘nerves’.

And then he was introduced, with Fairbrother, to Elizabeth Bulwer Lytton’s third (and favourite, said Kezia) son. Edward Bulwer Lytton’s two elder brothers had inherited estates away, and thus he lived in London and at Knebworth with his adoring mother. Hervey thought him about twenty-five, Kezia’s age, rather dandified in his dress, with a long, intelligent face, and an air which suggested he might be engaging company. Except that (Hervey was certain) his cheeks were rouged.

‘Edward has recently published a second novel, Colonel Hervey,’ said Kezia, as the little party continued with its introductions.

Her lapse into the formality of his rank exasperated him, especially as she used their host’s Christian name (and he ‘Kezzy’), and looked at him with all the appearance of admiration, which Hervey had not so far been favoured with. ‘Indeed, sir?’ He said it a little too curtly, he knew.

Edward Bulwer Lytton maintained his pleasant countenance, however. ‘I must earn a living, Colonel, as you.’

Hervey chided himself. Impatience with a man ten years his junior – and not under his orders – was neither edifying nor necessary. ‘Just so. I confess I have been remiss in respect of my reading of late. I have managed only a very few books new-published. Might I enquire what your novel is about, sir?’

‘Certainly, Colonel Hervey. It is of the intense friendship of two men, which leads the one to save the life of the other.’

Naturally Hervey was intrigued by the subject, but he judged, from the author’s air, that the book would not be exactly to his taste; he would have to be nimble on his feet lest he appear an ungracious guest. ‘The noblest of things,’ he said, nodding.

Fairbrother’s brow furrowed. ‘Is it by some chance called Pelham, Mr Lytton? I do believe I bought it last week in London.’

‘It is.’

‘Then I am sorry that I did not bring it with me to Hertfordshire; I should have liked to take it back to the Cape Colony with me, inscribed.’

‘There will be another occasion, I hope, Mr Fairbrother.’

Kezia took her leave of them, explaining that she must attend to the pianoforte (Knebworth, she had told them, had a concert grand), and shortly afterwards Hervey and Fairbrother bowed and left their host to his other arriving guests.

‘A considerable coincidence, I should say, your buying Lytton’s book,’ said Hervey as they made their way into the banqueting hall.

‘Ye-es.’

‘What recommended it to you?’

They took glasses of champagne from a footman.

‘While you were at Holland-park, before we travelled to Wiltshire, I read in a magazine called The Examiner, which your club most generously provided, an article which rather caught my eye under the title “The Dandy School”. By Mr Hazlitt?’

Hervey nodded. He had certainly heard of Hazlitt – had read him, perhaps. Henrietta used to commend him.

‘This dandy school – or “silver-fork” school it is also, apparently, called – is very much the mode, holding up for admiration, as it does, the lives of the rich and fashionable. Hazlitt was most contemptuous of it; he thought it narrow and superficial, and folly to admire a class whose characteristics were caprice and insolence. Naturally, since I expected to be moving in such society, I thought to buy several of these novels.’

Hervey pulled a face. He was used to Fairbrother’s drollness, and he would not rise to the bait. ‘Quite a coincidence nevertheless. But I do pray that you keep Mr Hazlitt’s strictures to yourself this evening.’

Fairbrother, smiling, took a sip of his champagne as he surveyed the room. ‘Oh, my dear friend, you may count on my good behaviour in such company.’

Hervey was sure of it. He held his glass to his lips as he made his own survey of the room. It scarcely seemed ‘silver-fork’ however. It had its share of dandies, unquestionably, but many more of an ‘artistic’ disposition. There were certainly no uniforms, where ten years ago at such an assembly there would have been at least half a dozen militia pleased to disport themselves. He was doubly glad to have Fairbrother at his side.

The evening passed agreeably enough, however, although Kezia was unable to spend any time with her betrothed or his friend. Hervey managed a little conversation, principally with a radical member of parliament on the question of Catholic emancipation; Fairbrother had considerably more (he was, indeed, a centre of much attention). There was an excellent cold table and some fine hock. They were bidden to take their seats at about nine, and entertainment followed for a full two hours: poetry reading, Shakespearean soliloquies – and music. The music was not, though, the popular sort with which he was familiar – no hunting songs like that the Somerviles had sung so roisteringly at Sezincote. It was the sort that delighted the serious-minded – string quartets, piano sonatas by Beethoven, lieder. Hervey sat dutifully through it all, nodding only moderately, until Kezia at last took the floor. She sang three songs by Schubert, accompanying herself. And Hervey saw – as perhaps he had sensed only distantly at Sezincote – that Kezia was more than a mere proficient. Even to his untutored and unmusical ear there was, indeed, something in her voice and playing that surely stood comparison with what he might hear in London.

And yet, as much as he might esteem her sweetness of tone, and dexterity at the keyboard, he found himself more taken by the swell of her breast in the lieder’s challenging dynamics. He understood very plainly, now, that he desired her at least as much as he admired her.

The next five days passed quietly, but without any real resolution of the marriage arrangements. In this they were not helped by the absence of Kezia’s father, who would, naturally, have to be consulted in the matter of the wedding and the subsequent marital establishment. Kezia largely spent the mornings practising at her fortepiano,