Man Of War

courtesy – of listening to my opinion, for you have sought it.’

Hervey sat back in his chair, his eyes narrowed.

‘For Lady Lankester I cannot speak, though I am equally sure of her feelings. For your part, I have not the slightest doubt that you will make of her a fine commanding officer’s wife, and the equal figure of a mother for your daughter—’

He lifted a hand again to stay another protest.

‘But in a few years’ time – perhaps more than a few, but it must be so eventually – you will meet another with whom your true feelings shall be engaged, and being the man you are you will be unable to act on them. But you will never be happy. Neither do I believe shall she.’

Hervey rose. ‘You forget yourself, sir!’ he said coldly.

Several heads turned, but Fairbrother took no notice.

‘I trust I do not. I trust I speak as a true friend.’

Hervey threw down his napkin. ‘You have not the slightest notion of what you speak!’

Fairbrother held the angry scowl defiantly, and then Hervey stalked from the room like a goaded beast.

At nine the following morning, as Fairbrother lay half asleep, a tray of tea beside his bed and The Times unopened, there was a knock at the door. ‘Yes,’ he called wearily.

Hervey opened the door, cautiously. He was fully dressed, and with all the appearance of one who had been so for some hours.

The valet had half drawn the curtains; Fairbrother squinted in the bright sunlight, and groaned. ‘What? Is the building afire? Do the Zulu attack? I did not hear “alarm”.’

‘I was awake before dawn, and rose early.’

‘Then you’re a deuced fool.’ He turned away from the door.

‘I had not slept well. I cannot bear to lie abed if I am awake.’

‘But there’s no cause to inflict your peculiar regimen on others.’

‘I’ve been to Russell-square.’

Fairbrother at once turned, and raised himself on an arm, eyes open. ‘Why?’ he asked, quietly.

‘I believe you know the answer.’

‘Did they admit you at such an hour?’

‘Yes. The housekeeper was very obliging. I did not stay long – just long enough to look at the painting again.’

Fairbrother was now sitting upright. He poured himself tea, lukewarm. ‘And did you walk away from Russell- square the more composed?’

Hervey pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘In a sense, yes. There was not the shock of first seeing it, naturally. But, you know, she’s still there.’

‘What do you mean by that exactly?’

Hervey’s brow furrowed as he sought the words to explain. ‘These past few years – these past five years, I suppose, the time in India principally – the memory has receded. Not so much receded, as . . . Well, what I mean is that I do not think of her hour to hour as first I did, or even day to day. And there have been some weeks when I do not believe I thought of her at all, though they were exceptional – when we were in the field, or some such. And yet when I did think of her it was with undiminished force. Do you understand me?’

Fairbrother nodded. ‘I do,’ he said, tenderly.

‘And this painting . . . It is such a likeness that she might be there in the room.’

Fairbrother sighed. ‘And so what is it that you conclude?’

Hervey shook his head. ‘My dear fellow, I am most excessively sorry for what I said last night. It troubled me greatly as I lay awake, as much as did thoughts of the painting.’

Fairbrother leaned forward, as if to make a greater contact. ‘Hervey, no man ought to hear such a thing as I said, any more than a man ought to say it. My disquiet can be naught to yours, however. Think nothing more of it.’

‘You are very good,’ said Hervey, forcing a sad smile. ‘I do not believe there is a man in my own regiment with whom I could speak so freely – on any matter. Indeed, I am certain of it.’

Fairbrother smiled by return. ‘Of course; it must be so. There, a man ever stands in relation to another as subordinate or superior. Except the cornets, naturally, among whom seniority is like virginity among whores. And you are no longer a cornet.’

Hervey smiled ruefully. ‘No, indeed, I am no longer a cornet.’

‘And so?’

He shook his head. ‘That is the point, my friend: I am no longer a cornet.’

Now Fairbrother shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, dear one: you lose me.’

‘I am a field officer – major, with a half-colonel’s brevet, and, I flatter myself, prospects of substantive promotion. I have a daughter, and no wife, but the prospect of marrying a good woman.’

Fairbrother sighed inly. A sleepless night and a brisk morning’s walk had evidently done little for his friend’s powers of apt introspection. ‘Hervey, I know you to be a most honourable man, with the most honourable of intentions . . .’

Hervey held up a hand. These were deep waters – waters he had never before trodden. There were strange forces at work in such depths; he did not trust himself to remain afloat, let alone make headway. But he had freely entered those waters, had he not? In truth, had he not long craved this new-found intimacy, even without knowing that he did? ‘Fairbrother, I can scarce say the words, for they will, I know, dismay you the more – and why should I care about that? – but I have asked Lady Lankester to marry me, and she has accepted me. That is, truly, an end to it.’

Fairbrother shook his head. ‘You do dismay me. You play the Stoic: you would beat out your brains to prove your virtue!’

‘And what, precisely, do you mean by that?’

‘I mean precisely what I said last night; no more, no less. Hervey, I have seen the way you look at Lady Lankester – she is an uncommonly attractive woman – but it is plain that there is insufficient love between the two of you. And it will not serve, I tell you.’

‘And I repeat that I have asked for Kezia’s hand, and she has accepted me. It would be unsupportable to consider otherwise now.’

Fairbrother’s face was a picture of incredulity. ‘You would proceed knowing that you were in error?’

‘That is to distort what I said. Once we are married—’

‘Is it to distort what you said? I cannot think so. Your sister has the wisdom and courage to recognize her error and to act on it, and yet you who have had so many years the habit of such wisdom and courage – where it touches indeed on other men’s lives as well as your own – all you can do is be a philosopher!’

‘I am resolved to make the best of things and to do my duty. Is that so very bad?’

‘It is not so much very bad as improbable.’

‘Perhaps in your philosophy.’

‘And doubtless there will be “Kat of my consolation”,’ said Fairbrother, half beneath his breath.

‘What? ’

‘Go and read your Shakespeare! He will tell you a good deal more of humanity than will your philosophers!’

Hervey left Fairbrother to his barber while he himself went on foot to Golden Square, to number 33 Great Pulteney Street, the premises of Mr John Broadwood and Sons, piano-makers to His Majesty King George IV &c. He had been once before, to buy a piano for Georgiana, and it had cost him twenty-eight guineas. This morning it was his intention to buy something altogether more substantial, a wedding present that would both delight his bride and express his admiration – and consideration – for her playing. He knew that the cost of such a piano – a grand, such as Herr Schubert himself would be pleased to sit at – would be rather greater, but he had no very good idea of by how much.

The demonstrator at the showroom quite understood that Hervey himself did not play, and endeavoured to tell him of the considerable improvements of late in the construction of the concert-grand pianoforte – the solid bars in combination with the fixed metal string-plate, the compressed-felt hammers, and so on and so on. And since, he