Man Of War

Hervey frowned at the challenge. ‘As you well know, she is to marry Peto. They met many years ago, I believe when he came to Wiltshire for my wedding, and then later in Rome when Elizabeth and I had gone there for . . . to see Italy’ (he did not feel it expedient still to disclose to Fairbrother the extent of his melancholy after Henrietta’s death, though that was some . . . ten years ago). ‘They became engaged last summer, just before Peto joined his ship.’ He suddenly looked askance. ‘That is, I assume he received Elizabeth’s acceptance before putting to sea. By heavens, what a business is courtship in uniform!’

‘Quite.’

‘My father has been vicar of his parish for many years, and lately Archdeacon of Sarum, and Elizabeth has done good works in the parish – or I should say parishes, for my father has had the additional cure of several when they had no clerk. And she has always been active with the workhouse in the town. You know, it was she who found Serjeant Wainwright.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. He comes from an indigent family hereabouts. Though I say “family”, he doesn’t know his father; Elizabeth knew of their situation and urged me to enlist him.’

‘In that alone she has done you the greatest service.’

Hervey sighed. ‘That, and a hundred other things.’ He turned to look at his friend direct. ‘I could not measure my gratitude to her. Such sound sense and compassion.’

‘I look forward to making her acquaintance.’

‘You must not alarm her, Fairbrother, or any of the family.’

His friend looked bemused. ‘I have left my animal skins at the United Service Club, Hervey.’

‘Don’t be an ass. I meant you are not to alarm them with stories of the Cape.’

‘As you wish. Though it was not my intention.’

‘No, but Georgiana might wheedle it out of you, or it might come out casually at dinner on account of some unintended line.’

‘I understand, though do you not think they might have some inkling of events from the newspapers?’

‘That is possible. But by and large I keep these things to myself.’

Fairbrother said nothing. He was a guest, even though he accompanied his friend on the orders of the lieutenant-governor – ‘captain-nursemaid’, Hervey had ribbed – and since he was not on intimate terms with the manners of the English gentry, he was content to take counsel and observe. But how stiff it all sounded compared with the way things were in his own country!

The joy of the last mile to Horningsham was to him undiminished by such thoughts, however. The prospect of Archdeacon Hervey’s church, when it came, was especially pleasing, and then the parsonage was all charm (Hervey had told him that it was but a modest house and establishment – ‘my father did not have benefit of Queen Anne’s Bounty’), a hotch-pot of building covered in ivy and moss and vines. They had been hourly expected, for Hervey had increased his expenses by sending an express, and as soon as the chaise’s wheels growled into the drive, the household came outside to greet them.

Fairbrother was wholly intrigued by the ceremony. Whenever he had returned to his father’s house the greeting had been with him alone, and at his mother’s cabin it had been all exuberance, with no precedence but that gained by the agility of any number of aunts, uncles and cousins. He descended from the chaise and watched as his friend greeted his father with an easy smile, but with a bow rather than a handshake (or kisses, as he himself would have in Jamaica). The Venerable Thomas Hervey did indeed look as his title, a kindly old gentleman, an Englishman of proper sentiment and loyalties, and just as his friend had described him. Mrs Hervey, on the other hand, of whom her son had spoken little, looked less at ease, a woman, he imagined, of indifferent sensibilities and limited comprehension. He did not think she would care much for his intrusion on the household. Hervey greeted her with kisses and a sort of indulging frown, as much as to say ‘I am here, and I am sure all will be well’.

His sister now came forward, with a look that he, Fairbrother, could not quite recognize. It seemed to carry at once both deference and superiority, defiance even – but certainly the strongest affection. There was no doubting their kinship: the shape of the face, the eyes, the . . . assumption of authority. It was really most striking. They embraced, and Hervey stood back and smiled in a way that said how prodigiously proud he was of her. And then, last in line, standing with perfect composure, was the child of whom Fairbrother had heard his friend speak so much, yet without once imparting any appreciable knowledge. She advanced, curtsied – which he surmised was the culmination of a morning’s practice – and then burst into excited greeting, throwing her arms wide and hugging her father about his waist before he was able to bend, or to lift her up to embrace. She was her father’s daughter – the likeness was clear – yet so unlike her aunt as to remind Fairbrother that there had been a mother too.