A Close Run Thing

Hervey looked blank at the notion.

‘Be so good as to ask mademoiselle to join us,’ said the count to his footman.

A clock began chiming the eleventh hour, and, before it had finished, the footman returned.

‘Good morning, Mr Hervey!’ Sister Maria’s voice commanded an end to their polite talk. She smiled full and warm as she strode towards him across the grand salon and embraced him unselfconsciously. ‘I am glad to see you safe. From all that we have heard your life has been in very great danger.’

He did not suppose that she could have had any notion of the particulars, so he replied with a simple ‘We were fifty thousand in the most grievous danger, Sister’.

She smiled again: that was what she would have supposed him to say. It was a smile he had seen many times in Toulouse. And at first, indeed, there seemed nothing about her appearance different from that morning at the Convent of St Mary Magdalen when they had said their farewells. She wore the same habit of black homespun. There was the same stark white wimple that framed her face at their every meeting, and the veil that fell around her shoulders, in the way that Caithlin’s O’Mahoney’s hair fell about hers. And yet there was about her a different sort of composure from that which he had formerly admired.

‘Ma fille,’ the count interrupted, ‘perhaps Mr Hervey would like to see the garden.’

The garden, or gardens (for there were three distinct ones: an Italian — geometric, with elegant little fountains; another owing something to the south of the country, with terracotta pots everywhere; and one decidedly English), was uncommonly quiet. The noise of the street was excluded and, at this time, with the sun high and its heat growing, there were few birds with any inclination for singing. Hervey and Sister Maria walked for a quarter of an hour, first in the Italian and then in the Provencal garden, she pointing to some feature and then he to another. They spoke little of the year that had passed. There was so much that might be said, yet Hervey sensed their time together was short, and for his part he could not thus aspire to relate anything of substance. When they reached the English garden he thought it time they should return to the house, conscious that Colonel Grant remained there waiting.

‘Well, Sister,’ he began, ‘I am gratified that I have been able to discharge my obligation to you, and to find you in such manifest good spirits. I believe, however, that I must now take my leave of you: you will understand that there are pressing matters to be about.’

Sister Maria evidently did not consider any matters to be ultimately too pressing: ‘You are right,’ she said, ‘I am in good spirits. I am at peace with God and restored to my family: there is nothing more I could desire. But you, I perceive, are not in such spirits. Something troubles you.’

Hervey recoiled at the intrusion, just as he had the first time in Toulouse. ‘Nothing troubles me, Sister,’ he said briskly, making some unnecessary adjustment to his sword-slings and turning towards the house.

‘Mr Hervey,’ she insisted, ‘I am sorry that one year has put this distance between us.’

Her words halted him in mid-stride. He did not wish to share his thoughts with anyone now that he had been able so firmly to place them at the back of his mind (or so he thought he had placed them). Serjeant Armstrong had upbraided him for brooding that morning after the battle, and he had been careful since to avoid any such occasion for censure. But he could not pretend that this woman had no sensibility of his disquiet when she so clearly had, nor that their former vocal intimacy was erasable. He sighed. ‘Sister Maria, there is hardly time to begin to explain the circumstances, but I have on my conscience the death of a brave man. My head tells me that it should be otherwise, but not my heart. I should wish, perhaps, to tell you more, but I sail for England shortly. Time is truly pressing.’

‘Very well, Mr Hervey,’ she conceded, turning with him for the house, ‘we cannot speak of it, but I urge that you do so when you return to your country. I have been studying your prayer-book — the one you gave me. It is — how do you say — tres contestataire?

‘Disputatious!’ suggested Hervey.

‘Yes, disputatious. But no matter. In its exhortation before mass — or communion as you say — the priest invites him that cannot quiet his own conscience to go to him for absolution. Do you know such a priest that might, as well as pronounce absolution, give just counsel in this?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he replied wearily.

‘Then, you must see him with no more delay than is strictly necessary for your other duties.’

Hervey agreed.

‘And now, before you go,’ she smiled, ‘my father wishes to make some small gesture of our gratitude. Come!’

Later he would regret, much, that their tryst was so brief. Yet in that brief meeting she had again given him a certain peace, and strengthened his resolve on a course additional to priestly absolution (though she could not know it). And he was glad when she said that she would be remaining in Paris, for when he returned he could take up her invitation to visit at the Carmelite house in the city whence she was appointed.

That Afternoon

‘You appear to have made a most felicitous connection, Hervey. Grant tells me that Count Chantonnay has more influence with Louis Bourbon than Conde even,’ said Lord George Irvine as they sipped Madeira after a light luncheon of calf’s tongue followed by early strawberries brought from Provence. ‘Let me see that bauble again.’

Hervey handed him the velvet-covered case.

‘A fleur-de-lis within a laurel wreath — and those are without doubt the finest emeralds. And prettily fixed on that sky-blue ribbon, too. It should set off your levee dress handsomely!’

‘It is a family order, sir, approved of the Court by long custom, the count informed me. He was insistent that I should receive it.’

‘Of course, of course,’ smiled Lord George. ‘I am sure the prince regent will not be ill-disposed to the notion of a foreign decoration’s adorning one of his officers. Envious, perhaps, but not ill-disposed. And a touching reunion with your nun was had, I understand?’

Hervey would not be drawn. ‘She is a remarkable woman.’

‘And you will leave for England this night?’

‘Immediately after the service of memorial for Captain Jessope,’ he replied, at once heavy.

‘Jessope? Lord Fitzroy Somerset’s aide-de-camp? He is killed too? I did not know it. I wish in God’s name we might see a list soon. Lord Fitzroy himself is not long for this world, too, by all accounts. Jessope dead! I cannot say I knew him well — I met him but infrequently at White’s — but an engaging officer, though. And you knew him?’

‘Imperfectly,’ replied Hervey softly, hoping that Lord George would not dwell on it — which he did not.

‘Your captaincy, however,’ demanded his commanding officer peremptorily. ‘What are we to do?’

‘As I said, sir, it is wholly beyond my means; it would not do to delay selling any longer — Anson’s widow will need an annuity.’

‘Be that as it may, Hervey, I will not send the papers to Craig’s Court until we reach England. Have you no prospects, of any sort?’

‘None, I am afraid, sir!’

Lord George sighed pointedly. ‘Mr Hervey, let me speak plainly with you. Are you not to marry the ward of the Marquess of Bath?’

Whitehall, 27 July

The troopers of the Blues, standing mounted sentinel at the gates of the Horse Guards, brought their heavy-cavalry-pattern swords from the shoulder to the carry as Hervey got down from the carriage and walked between them, returning the salute with his right hand. He would have preferred the anonymity of plain clothes but