Fire and Sword

representing his constituents. After that Arthur would be able to support his brother in Parliament, while at the same time promoting his views on the most effective way of defeating France.

There was a knock on the doorframe and Arthur turned away from the window to see Corporal Blake standing beyond the threshold, holding a leather pouch.

‘Excuse me, sir. Just had the mail off the post coach from London.’

‘Thank you, Blake. On the desk there.’

Blake laid down the pouch and returned to his accounts in the other room. With a sigh Arthur unfastened the pouch ties and flicked back the flap. Inside were several letters. He took them out and examined the first, a brief note from the War Office acknowledging his request for permission to conduct live firing exercises, and regretfully urging him to take the matter no further due to the stringent financial constraints the Treasury was placing on army and naval expenditure. Arthur tossed it to one side and opened the second letter, from his mother, Anne Wellesley. It was curt and precise and Arthur thought it read like a mere series of diary entries as it related the most recent social events she had attended in London. There were a few references to the family, including a caustic comment about Richard’s being too arrogant to defend the family’s good name in Parliament. It concluded with a brief expression of good will to Arthur, who she trusted was looking after his health. Arthur set the letter aside with the familiar sense of resignation over his mother’s evident lack of maternal affection for him.Then his eye fell on the next letter and he froze for an instant as he read the name of the sender.

Lord Longford, Rutland Square, Dublin. Arthur held the letter up and stared at it as he felt his pulse quicken.Then he broke the seal, unfolded the paper and began to scan it quickly. He read it once again, more slowly, to be sure that he had understood it fully. Kitty’s brother acknowledged his letter requesting permission to propose to her. In view of the rank that Arthur now held in the army, as well as the knighthood bestowed on him, and the private fortune he had accrued after his service in India,Thomas Pakenham deemed Arthur worthy of his sister’s hand in marriage. Therefore he would raise no objection if Sir Arthur Wellesley were to send a formal proposal of marriage to Kitty.

‘Good God,’ he said as he laid it on the desk.‘What a pompous idiot.’

‘Sir?’ Blake leaned out from his desk so that he could see his commanding officer.

‘It’s nothing. Pray continue with your work.’

Arthur was cross with himself for uttering such an uncharitable thought about his prospective brother-in-law. After all, Thomas had given him permission to marry Kitty, having rebuffed him eleven years previously on the grounds that Arthur was unworthy.Well, now the wait was over, and Kitty would be his wife, if she accepted his offer. Arthur realised, with some surprise, that the feeling uppermost in his mind was not unbridled joy at the prospect, but a sense of relief that all the uncertainty of his feelings for Kitty was almost over.

He did not dwell on the sentiment but immediately drew a sheet of paper from his stationery drawer, flipped the lid back on his inkwell and took up his pen to write to her at once. When he had finished, he glanced over his words critically. It was no love letter, to be sure. It stated his intentions clearly and tersely and requested that he might know her mind on this as soon as possible, since they had waited long enough already and he would wish to make arrangements for the marriage at once, if she would do him the honour of accepting his hand. Satisfied that the letter was adequate to the occasion Arthur signed it, blotted the ink and folded the paper, sealed it and wrote Kitty’s address on the front.

‘Blake!’

‘Sir?’ the corporal called. His chair scraped back and he hurriedly stepped into the room to stand stiffly before Arthur’s desk.

Arthur carefully placed the letter in the despatch pouch and held it out to Blake. ‘See that this gets on the coach back to London at once.’

‘Sir?’ Blake looked uncertain.

‘What is it, man?’

‘The coach stops down in the town just long enough to change the horses and pick up the passengers and post. Then it goes straight back to London, sir. It’s most likely too late for the letter to go today, sir.’

‘Well, there’s only one way to find out, Corporal. Get it down there yourself. Right now.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Blake saluted, then turned away, and Arthur could almost sense his irritation at being ordered away from his warm office. But, he reasoned with an amused smile, the corporal was rather too corporeal and would benefit from the exercise. Then, as the man’s footsteps receded, Arthur sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, recalling as best he could Kitty’s face and the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and slowly a host of other memories from many years before played out in his mind and filled his heart with warm delight.

A month later Arthur went to London to see William in order to plan their defence of Richard. William ensured that he was introduced to many of the leading figures of the day and briefed him on those who could be counted on to speak up for Richard, and those who could be numbered amongst his enemies. Richard did himself no favours by remaining contemptuously aloof and refusing to counter the charges laid against him. Arthur had sent Kitty a brief note informing her that he would be staying at William’s London home temporarily and that any letter should be sent there in the first instance.

While he waited for her reply Arthur made the most of the chance to see old friends, visit the theatre and attend social events. It was at a raucous party at Swann’s, a Chelsea club favoured by the cavalry, that he ran into Richard Fitzroy, an old friend with whom Arthur had served since his earliest days in the army.The main salon was filled with army officers, mostly youngsters, and as ever it was the hussars who were making the loudest noise. Arthur had been invited to join an acquaintance from his days in India, but the man had not turned up and so Arthur sat at a table in one corner and watched the antics of the younger men with an amused detachment as they competed to see who could throw a goose feather the furthest. Their frequent roars of encouragement echoed round the room and drew the occasional disapproving glance from more senior, or serious-minded, officers sitting at the other end of the salon. As Arthur watched, a cheery-faced individual in a red jacket pushed through the throng towards him. Arthur grinned as he recognised an old friend.

‘Hello, Arthur!’ Fitzroy beamed as he reached Arthur’s table and clasped his friend’s hand warmly. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while. What brings you here?’

‘The search for decent companionship,’ Arthur replied with mock weariness.

‘Ah, yes. I had heard that you were thinking of entering Parliament. My commiserations. But why do it at all?’