Man Of War

‘Well, brother, you have spoken with Mama and will know my news. That is why you are come, is it not? Mama sent for you?’

Hervey was thrown disconcerted on to the defensive. ‘I should anyway have come at the first opportunity.’

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows challengingly.

‘But Elizabeth, this is a sorry affair. I—’

‘Sorry? Sorry, Matthew? I see no cause for sorrow. I had hoped you might take pleasure in my happiness!’

Hervey now raised his eyebrows. ‘I did. I most certainly did – last year when you accepted Peto’s offer of marriage.’

Elizabeth looked away momentarily. ‘I am very sorry, of course, to disappoint so good a man as Captain Peto.’ She looked directly at him again. ‘But I took advantage of that same good nature. I should never have accepted the offer, for I did not love him.’

Hervey looked at her, astonished, incredulous. ‘But you would have come to love him. He is so fine a man. What else could you wish for?’

Elizabeth smiled benignly, almost indulgently. ‘I cannot marry a man I do not love, Matthew, no matter how much I admire him.’

Hervey shook his head, lowered his voice and spoke slowly. ‘How can you go back on your promise? And why was I not to know until now, and from Mama?’

Elizabeth returned the challenge in his eyes, calmly defiant. ‘I did not promise. That would have been for the marriage ceremony itself.’

Hervey bridled at what he perceived as casuistry. ‘Elizabeth! You gave your answer to a man who was sailing to face the King’s enemies. Is that not of some moment?’

Elizabeth almost smiled in her exasperation. ‘You mean it mightn’t be so bad if he were merely on a guard-ship at Portsmouth?’

Hervey was positively angering. ‘I mean, is Peto not due some especial consideration thereby?’

Elizabeth sighed. ‘He is, of course. And I shall write to him in the most considerative terms, I assure you.’

‘You have not written to him?’

‘I have written to him, yes. I have written several letters to him – why would not you think that I had? But . . . I am only lately come to the certainty that I cannot marry him, and therefore to the resolve to write to him in those terms. Do you know how long it takes a letter to reach him?’

Hervey was puzzled by the turn. ‘No?’

‘Well nor do I! I have not received a single letter since he sailed, and that the better part of a year ago. I know, of course, that he will have written, but I don’t suppose the mails are obliging at sea.’

‘Elizabeth, there is an irreverence in your tone which I find incomprehensible. Do you not understand that Peto commands the most powerful of His Majesty’s ships presently at sea, or that he has held that command in the greatest of sea battles since Trafalgar?’

A note of pleading replaced the wholly defiant: ‘But Matthew, I cannot be obliged to marry a man against my inclinations on account of his gallantry . . . or on account of my previous error of judgement.’

Hervey found no answer.

‘Besides, I love Major Heinrici.’

‘I cannot believe it!’

‘That I love someone? Whyever not, Matthew? You knew him once indeed: you must admit that he too is a fine man.’

‘I? Knew him once?’

‘In Spain, and at Waterloo.’

Hervey was beginning a very distant recollection . . .

‘In the King’s German Legion.’

Hervey now recalled it – but a Rittmeister, a captain of cavalry, a man several years his senior. ‘I don’t understand . . . How . . .’

‘He is a widower. His wife died three years ago. There are three children – three daughters.’ Elizabeth’s face brightened with a happy confidence that even Hervey could not fail to recognize. Indeed, he had never seen her face thus.

He turned away. He must not let such a consideration cloud his judgement.

* * *

Dinner was not a joyful event. Hervey had told Fairbrother what had transpired between Elizabeth and him, as much as anything to save his friend from any innocent but uncomfortable remark at table. Fairbrother, however, had registered bewilderment at Hervey’s vehemence, and the following morning, while his friend walked with Georgiana and her pony in Longleat Park, he offered to accompany Elizabeth on an errand towards Warminster.

‘I am sorry you have met us in these less than concordant circumstances, Captain Fairbrother,’ Elizabeth began, forthright, before they were long left the parsonage.

Fairbrother was not in the least discomfited. Rather he welcomed the opportunity to address the matter. ‘Do not trouble for my part, Miss Hervey; I am only sorry that there is any occasion for discord in so evidently close a family as yours, about which I have heard much.’

‘You are very gracious, sir,’ replied Elizabeth, and meaning it. ‘I am gratified at least to know that we occupy some part of my brother’s thoughts when he is at his duties.’