Man Of War

When they arrived at Russell Square – it took them all of three-quarters of an hour to get there through the throng of pedestrians, drovers and carriages in Soho – they were received by a footman with whom Hervey had become almost familiar. He took them at once to the viewing room, where the canvas stood upon an easel, and then withdrew.

Georgiana advanced on the portrait in silence, and cautiously, as if she were to be presented. She gazed only at the face, and for a long while. Hervey stood back, not wishing in any way to influence her reaction, hoping, indeed, that she might forget he were there, so that he might see her true opinion, and not merely of the portraitist but of his subject.

‘She has a very kind face,’ said Georgiana at length, admiringly. ‘And she looks very happy.’

Hervey had observed the same: all was revealed in the eyes, which sparkled exactly as he remembered. ‘Indeed. We were engaged to be married.’

‘And she is very beautiful.’

‘She is.’ He caught himself echoing Georgiana’s present tense, and resolved to correct it as he elaborated: ‘She was as beautiful as any I ever saw.’

Another long silence followed, in which Georgiana examined every aspect of the painting. And then she stepped back, as if to take in the whole once more. ‘But Lady Lankester is very beautiful too.’

Hervey swallowed. Georgiana’s capacity to surprise was disconcerting. ‘Indeed.’

She took two more paces back, and towards him. ‘And Lady Lankester is now to take Mama’s place. Aunt Elizabeth says that I am very fortunate to have such a mother.’

Hervey cleared his throat. ‘Fortunate . . . yes. But deserving also.’

‘What does Aunt Elizabeth think of the painting, Papa?’

Hervey’s insides twisted in the peculiar way they did when he was suddenly confronted with some dereliction: he had not even thought to tell Elizabeth of it, let alone to have her see it – and Henrietta had been her best friend. ‘I . . . I believe I wanted you to know of it first,’ he said, hopefully.

‘And Lady Lankester, does she know of it? Shall it come with us to Africa?’

‘I’m not yet resolved on that, my dear. It is, as I said, barely a month since I myself was first acquainted with the painting.’

‘I hope it does not make you sad, Papa. I know, of course, that I cannot feel the same as do you, because I never knew Mama, but we are now to begin a new life, are we not? We shall be together for the first time! I wish Aunt Elizabeth could be with us, but she will have her own family, new, just as ours. I hope she will be as happy as we shall be.’

Hervey was rendered speechless once more: he could not have spoken even if he had known what to say. ‘This is eloquence’, he marvelled, somewhere in his mind, echo of something he had read years ago and had forgotten what or where. This is eloquence. For Henrietta could be no more, and neither could their love, for ever now unrequited. Never could there be such love again. Yet be some sort of love there must – ay, and with it its compensations. For his family’s sake; for his own. Else he would find himself again as he was in that cell at Badajoz . . .

Presently, seeing Georgiana looking at him and not the painting, he took her hand, smiled at her, and led her from the room, unhurriedly but without speaking. Perhaps, now, the ghost was laid to rest. He could not quite tell what or how, but there was a change . . . Curiously, and possibly for the first time, he felt altogether composed for what the morning – the rest of his life – promised. He was, indeed, at peace.

XXII

AN HONOURABLE ESTATE

Next morning, Waterloo Day, 1828

The wedding was an altogether smaller affair than had been the first nuptials of either Hervey or Kezia.

Eleven years earlier, in May 1817, Captain Matthew Hervey and Lady Henrietta Lindsay, ward of the Marquess of Bath, had been joined in stately matrimony at Longleat House amid resplendent uniforms, the regimental band and a guard of honour formed by the non-commissioned officers. And but three years ago, Kezia, only daughter of Sir Delaval Rumsey, Bart, and of Lady Rumsey, and Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ivo Lankester, Bart, had been joined in very county matrimony at Walden in Hertfordshire, the families of that and the neighbouring shires joining in the grandest of wedding breakfasts at Walden Park.