dismay. Lastly, he told him of Lord Holderness's relapse, although the epileptic seizure was not so debilitating as had been the one at Windsor, when he had nearly drowned as a consequence. He said that Lady Holderness had expressed her alarm that her husband had suffered another bout so soon (they did not normally recur within six months); and he confessed he had told the adjutant that the colonel had a cold and would not appear at orderly room for a day or so. That had been in the middle of the preceding week, he explained, and Lord Holderness was now restored and at office. He himself was therefore free to make the arrangements for their return to Cape Town.
'Is there anything I might do on your behalf ?' asked Fairbrother.
Hervey thought for a moment. 'There is, but not today. Tomorrow will do perfectly well. I should like you to go to the War Office and inform them that I am soon to return to the Cape, and enquire if in consequence there is any commission they wish of me. Explain that I must attend at Hounslow; hence my not coming in person.'
'Very well. You will give me a letter of introduction or some such?'
'I will, though John Howard might best conduct you there. And I beg you will forgive me if I ask that you dine here alone – just this evening – for Kezia and I are obliged to her aunt.'
Fairbrother raised a hand. 'Think nothing of it. I would not dream of intruding on the honeymoon. You have not said, by the way: how was your Brighton?'
Lady Marjoribanks lifted her head high when she addressed her new nephew by marriage. 'It is most unfortunate, Colonel Hervey, that you will not be able to hear your wife sing. You are quite certain, are you, that you must leave for Africa so early?'
And the tone was distinctly more accusatory than sympathetic. Hervey had to resist the desire to re-phrase the observation so that the misfortune was Kezia's in not being able to accompany her husband in his duties. 'I fear I must return next week, yes, Lady Marjoribanks.'
A footman poured more wine, which gave him just enough cause to avoid the gaze of his hostess. Hervey was by no means entirely discomfited by Kezia's aunt, but on the subject of his return to the Cape there had already been a sufficiency of objection. He was in any case reconciled, however reluctantly, to returning unaccompanied.
Lady Marjoribanks watched as another footman served her fish, a pause which Hervey hoped would be followed by a change in the direction of the conversation. 'Your wife's voice stands comparison with that of any professional singer, you know, Colonel Hervey. It is truly inopportune, this early return. The presence of the husband at this first concert in London is most desirable. Indeed to my mind it is unthinkable that it should be otherwise.'
Hervey would not have conceived it otherwise had there not been the imperative of Somervile's mission. He began to resent this – to his mind – inversion of the usual order of things. It was simple enough, was it not? He was a soldier, a soldier was under discipline, and he had received orders. Or, if not exactly orders, then a request; and a request from a senior officer was always to be considered an order (even though Somervile was not a senior officer). 'It is a deprivation that we shall all have to bear, Lady Marjoribanks, and it will be the easier in knowing that it is on His Majesty's business that I am bent.'
'Mm.' Lady Marjoribanks raised her head again, sounding unconvinced.
Hervey was wondering, too, if Kezia herself might not make some intervention on his behalf. He had after all withdrawn his objection to her remaining in England, and that was surely no little thing. He had likewise put in abeyance (in his mind at least) command of the Eighty-first: if a wife had objection to so great a thing as command of a particular regiment (or, more expressly, a particular station), then a man must take very careful account of it. And she knew, did she not, that he did so? He was at something of a loss, therefore, to know why she did not speak up for him now.
He looked at her.
'Shall you bring Georgiana here tomorrow?' was all that Kezia asked.
He was glad nevertheless of the change of subject. 'I shall have to go to Hounslow tomorrow. The day after, perhaps.'
'Where does she stay?' asked Lady Marjoribanks.
'At Grillon's hotel, in Albemarle-street.'
'Ah, Grillon's,' she replied, somewhat enigmatically, so that Hervey was tempted to ask if there was something he ought to know of it.
But instead he would be blithe. 'My family stayed there for the wedding. It appears a very agreeable place. It is convenient, also, for my sister.'
'Mm.'
The dinner continued in much the same fashion for a full hour. Lady Marjoribanks asked a good many questions but gave little by reply to any which Hervey was able to put to her in return. Kezia said next to nothing other than in direct response to an enquiry from her aunt. The proceedings were, indeed, so laboured that Hervey believed he had sufficient of the language to translate them simultaneously into Hindoostani or even Portuguese. Just after nine they rose, and Lady Marjoribanks announced that she would retire.
Hervey and Kezia took their coffee on the garden terrace. The evening was warm, the light only now beginning to fail.
'You said little at dinner, my love. Is all well?'
Kezia smiled thinly. 'All is perfectly well, yes, thank you. I am sorry if I was dull.'
Hervey frowned. 'I did not mean to imply . . . I merely remarked that you seemed a little . . . Perhaps you are tired. This heat . . .'
Kezia put down her coffee cup. 'I am a little tired, yes. And this weather brings on my headaches so. I think, if you will permit me, I shall retire, too.'
Hervey put down his own cup. A confusion of dismay and anger welled up within. He had to fight hard to suppress it, for the wine was freeing the reins. A contrary image of Kat then danced into his mind. He did not summon it, nor even wish it; he pushed hard against it, in fact, for together with the wine it only served to aggravate his frustration.
