A Call To Arms (14 page)

‘Excellent!’ said Hervey, smiling wide. ‘It was ever a nuisance for covert work. And all because someone had bought so much red cloth years back.’

‘I think I prefer red,’ said Elizabeth, examining a scarlet coatee hanging nearby. ‘I thought the Life Guards looked much nicer than the others this morning.’

Hervey looked pained. ‘You sound like one of Miss Austen’s heroines.’

Elizabeth pulled a face. How her brother was enjoying this! It tokened well.

They were another half an hour at Mr Gieve’s. With each minute Hervey parted with yet more of his modest savings. True, there was a margin to his account before he would need to mortgage his pay, and he had not yet received the past year’s rents of the Chintal jagirs; but he was still most conscious of the need for economy. And half of him believed that to be a very good thing in a soldier (for it would keep him lean, so to speak), while the other
half craved the means to be an independent-minded officer. If only he had not so precipitately disposed of all his former uniform.

When they left, Hervey asked if they should look for dining rooms. As Elizabeth said she was not hungry, he took her instead to see Mr Bullock’s ‘Museum of Natural Curiosities’ a little way along Piccadilly. He thought to show her the elephant which stood as the centrepiece in the Egyptian hall, so that he might better give her an account of his struggle to save the Rajah of Chintal’s hunting elephant when that great beast had become stuck fast in the quicksands of the Sukri river. But Bullock’s was more than usually crowded, the main exhibit being no less than Bonaparte’s carriage – the very same that had carried the Great Disturber from the field of Waterloo when all was lost. Hervey paid over his two shillings for them both, dismayed that the price had exactly doubled since his last visit three years before, and made straight for the centre of attention. But oh! – the scene before them. Over the carriage and into it were clambering all manner of sightseers, each anxious to be able to crow some proximity to the tyrant, like a child taunting a caged beast at a menagerie. Hervey was as revolted by it as he would have been by the child’s prodding stick. ‘I own freely to never having had a moment’s admiration for the man, but this disrespect is gross unseemly.’

Elizabeth was more philosophical. ‘You must not take against them. We were all so afeard of the bogeyman of Europe, and for so long, that it is but relief.’

Hervey relented with a raising of his eyebrows. ‘I hate to see any soldier dishonoured by those who would never have the courage to face him in life.’

Elizabeth put a hand to his arm. ‘You are not wrong, brother dear. But you must allow for differences of temperament, as indeed you seemed more willing to do of late.’

Hervey was minded to dispute his sister’s thought in this. Instead he simply took her arm, and they walked about the exhibits for a while in welcome solitude, the carriage having drawn most of the sightseers.

‘Matthew,’ said Elizabeth suddenly, starting at the python coiled round a palm tree, yet trying not to be dismayed, ‘I saw a poster proclaiming the Waterloo rooms in Pall Mall. Is that far from here? Would you like to see them?’

Hervey had seen the poster too. ‘They’re but five minutes’ walk, though I have no very strong desire to see them. I’ll warrant they’re full of gruesome pieces scavenged from the field, taken from dead and dying alike, or else fanciful pictures and accounts. I confess I have no stomach for it. I should rather go and see this new bridge they call Waterloo. It is very handsome, I hear tell – a full half-mile of granite.’

Elizabeth was disappointed. ‘It would be nice to have
some
notion of the battle; that is all. It is difficult to conceive of your part in it with so scant a knowledge as I possess.’

But her brother seemed not to hear. He had been studying a mounted knight in full armour for some minutes. Elizabeth wondered what it was that engrossed him so. When he emerged from his thoughts it was as if he had been turning over some profound question. ‘Elizabeth, would you come with me to Hounslow? Tomorrow, on our way to Wiltshire, I mean. It would be a courtesy to call on the lieutenant-colonel rather than merely to write.’

Elizabeth thought she knew her brother’s mind better now than she had ever done. She was certain of what the trouble was: there were ghosts to lay in that place, and although her brother would face them alone if need be, a sister might be a powerful support. But would it be any kindness? Would it not be better to plead some reason why she could not go with him, thus making him face the ghosts alone? There would certainly be others in time, for it seemed to her that he had condemned himself to a perpetual haunting.

But it was not in Elizabeth’s nature to abandon her brother. On their journey from Rome he had spoken a good deal about the change in the Sixth of which the Earl of Sussex had written. And yesterday, when they had called on him at his set in Albany, the colonel had repeated his opinion that there was much work to be done. This had fired Hervey, it was true, but Elizabeth sensed also a certain anxiety. Its root she could not tell for sure, and this uncertainty, combined with simple sibling loyalty, determined her response. ‘Shall your commanding officer not think it a trifle strange that you should bring me?’ she asked, thinking the question fair no matter what the other considerations.

Hervey was quick to reassure her. ‘If he reveals it then I shall know I have made a grave error in returning.’

It was so stark an opinion that it fair took Elizabeth aback. She
had not supposed that the question was so contingent on the character of one man, and she said so.

Hervey now sensed her surprise, and was dismayed that she had not seemed to grasp the essentials of what had gone before these past two years. ‘The commanding officer is
everything
to a regiment’s soundness and fortune.’ He meant to say it kindly: he was sure he had meant it kindly, but he knew it must have sounded otherwise. He felt a terrible rush of despair in Elizabeth’s incomprehension. Henrietta would have understood.

Next day was St Swithun’s, and to general relief it was not raining. Indeed, it was as fresh and bright a morning as any they could remember of late in Italy. Matthew Hervey had advanced overnight from cornet of the 6th Dragoon Guards – the Carabineers, as some knew them – to lieutenant of the 82nd Foot, the Prince of Wales’s Volunteers. He had not worn any uniform of the Carabineers, nor would he of the Eighty-second. He did not think of himself as an officer of either regiment. This was a paper transaction only, the means by which he was proprietorially reinstated with a captaincy in his former regiment. It was a curious system by any measure. Indeed, he was not himself fully aware of its intricacies. He had tried, with varying degrees of success, to explain it to others as he did now to Elizabeth, but why there should be such a system he did not rightly know. Although it had served the country well these past twenty years, on the whole it had not been without its scandals and shortcomings. Had not the Duke of York himself fallen foul of it a little while ago – an unedifying affair of dubious trading in commissions? But of one thing Hervey was sure: it was a most expeditious way of restoring him to the Sixth. And as the travelling chariot he had engaged for the journey to Wiltshire drew up to the gates of the cavalry barracks at Hounslow, his only care was whether he might sufficiently conceal his pleasure at being …
home
.

He did not recognize the sentry, nor the corporal of the guard, but entrance was arranged easily enough. He did not announce himself by rank (a lieutenant of line infantry would only serve to confuse), instead handing his card to the corporal and declaring that he was come to see the lieutenant-colonel. The corporal did not even look at the card: that was an officer’s business. Instead
he gave it to an orderly with instructions to ‘accompany the gentleman to regimental headquarters’.

‘He did not recognize you, Matthew?’ said Elizabeth, curious, as they drove towards the single-storey building on the far side of the square.

‘It’s been more than a year. And before that we worked by troops, in the main. It’s possible we never saw each other before, if he joined after Waterloo. But it is unusual.’

He was recognized at once at the regimental headquarters, however. Mr Lincoln, the serjeant-major, was just leaving for his second rounds with the usual attendant party of picket-serjeant, provost-NCOs and orderlies. In an instant he transferred his whip from his right hand to under his left arm and threw up a salute so sharp that it quite startled Elizabeth. ‘Good morning, Captain Hervey, sir! We had word this morning you were to rejoin.’

Hervey raised his hat by return. ‘Elizabeth, this is Mr Lincoln, the regimental sar’nt-major. Mr Lincoln, my sister.’

‘An honour, ma’am,’ replied the RSM, saluting her in turn, though not as violently. ‘Captain Hervey has been very much missed these past twelve months.’

Hervey smiled just enough to reveal his gratification. ‘Is the commanding officer at orderly room, Mr Lincoln?’

‘He is, sir,’ replied the RSM, turning to one of his orderlies. ‘Wiles, go and tell the adjutant that Captain Hervey is calling on the lieutenant-colonel.’

Hervey nodded. ‘Good, good. Then I’ll let you be about the lines, Mr Lincoln, and look forward to being back there myself soon.’ He resisted hard the temptation to ask him which would be his own lines, for that should properly come from the commanding officer.

The RSM took his leave with another salute of absolute precision, and struck off for the horse lines followed by his attendant NCOs, each trying to emulate the master in the business of saluting.

Hervey turned to Elizabeth and smiled in a way that conceded it was all rather … different. Elizabeth gave a smile and raised her eyebrows, perfectly grasping his meaning. But there was no sign of diffidence on her part, and Hervey was impressed by it. She had
visited the regiment before, in Ireland, but she had not come so close to the heart of things as here this morning, on the very steps of the headquarters. Hervey was glad she had come, and so was Elizabeth.

The first thing he saw inside the building, well lit by its clerestories, were the two guidons, the lieutenant-colonel’s and the major’s, lodged against the far wall and flanked by a semi-arch of old-pattern sabres. It was a good display, proud and telling of the business the regiment was about. Then the adjutant stepped from his office, and Hervey was surprised to see it was Assheton-Smith; the adjutant was as a rule from the ranks, not a troop-officer. But before either of them could say a word there came a voice from the door of the further office. ‘Hervey, my dear sir! I am so glad you have come! I am so very glad we meet at last!’

A man perhaps ten years older than him, about his height and build, with the fine, unmistakably patrician features of the brother who had once been his idol, advanced with a broad smile and outstretched hand. Hervey took off his hat, smiled as broadly and took the hand. ‘I am very glad to be back, Colonel. May I present—’

‘Miss Hervey, I presume? My brother spoke of you.’ Sir Ivo Lankester bowed.

Elizabeth curtsied, returning his easy smile. She had met Hervey’s erstwhile troop-leader in Ireland, and had liked him very much. His brother appeared to her to have all Sir Edward’s good manners, and perhaps even more of his charm. She at once concluded that Matthew need have no concerns on his commanding officer’s account, at least.

‘Would you care to come into my office, Hervey? And Miss Hervey too, if that would not be too tedious. I shall send for coffee. Or perhaps you would prefer tea, Miss Hervey?’

Elizabeth was sure she would not find it in the least tedious to accept the invitation. ‘I should be very glad of coffee, sir.’

‘Capital,’ Sir Ivo exclaimed, turning to the side and indicating the open door.

It was Elizabeth’s first encounter with so intensely masculine a room, and she was evidently much taken with the buttoned leather chairs, the sabres and spurs, the drums, the oils of bloody battles
and illustrious officers, for she quite failed to catch the commanding officer’s enquiry.

‘Elizabeth?’ prompted her brother.

‘Oh, yes, er … ?’

Sir Ivo smiled. ‘I merely asked, Miss Hervey, if your time in Rome had been agreeable. I myself was there for some months before Oxford. I own that I might never have returned home had war not resumed.’

‘Oh, I liked it very much too, sir, very much,’ she replied, now repossessed of her former senses. ‘I liked its gaiety above all, I think, though they say it is nothing compared with Naples, but alas we were not able to travel there because of brigandage.’ She glanced at her brother; the explanation would suffice.

‘Who are the captains, Colonel?’ asked Hervey briskly.

‘Rose has A Troop, Barrow has B, Strickland C. And D is sold to a man from the Bays whom I have not yet met. Yours will be E Troop.’

‘So there are to be five troops only?’ Hervey’s voice betrayed a certain disappointment.

‘Five, yes. That is to be the Indian establishment. I confess it dismayed me to begin with, but so it shall be.’

Hervey glanced at Elizabeth, who seemed not greatly to care about the Indian establishment, engaged as she was by the intricate wirework on a shabraque laid over a chairback settee. ‘And who shall be my lieutenant?’

The commanding officer hesitated for a moment, as if he could not recall. ‘There is none at present.’

That need be no bad thing, thought Hervey: he could soon have a new lieutenant on the bit. ‘Cornets, Colonel?’