Man Of War

Fairbrother sensed the acerbity, for all Elizabeth’s sweetness. ‘Miss Hervey, forgive my interference, but I have spent much time of late in your brother’s company, and I can certainly attest to his thoughts in that regard. He has been more occupied with what he perceives as his familial duty than I have observed in any man.’

Elizabeth smiled, conceding. ‘I am sure it is so, Captain Fairbrother. Indeed, I wish at times he were not so very occupied.’

Fairbrother frowned. ‘You think it ill suited to him in some way?’

Elizabeth sighed. ‘In truth I do, for he cannot think . . . evenly. He is bound still by some sense of guilt in the loss of his wife, and I am sure that it clouds his judgement in all things.’

‘I may certainly attest to the rawness of his feelings in regard to his late wife.’

Elizabeth’s expression became pained. ‘She was my good friend too, sir.’

She did not add ‘Matthew forgets that’, but there was no need. And Fairbrother began to perceive the extent of her solitude – only daughter of a poor country living, unwed, no longer on calling terms at Longleat. It was all too clear why she had been content – happy, even – to accept an offer of marriage from one as sure as Captain Sir Laughton Peto; and then so decided when that most extraordinary, unexpected, unlooked-for, disconcerting thing – true love – should befall her. At this very moment he wished to put a protecting, brotherly arm around her – as her own brother ought – and to assure her of his strenuous support. ‘Miss Hervey, in this I would hope to be your good friend as well as your brother’s too. I am gratified – forgive me – to see you are so solicitous of his well-being. May I ask you a question?’

‘You may ask whatever you please, Captain Fairbrother, but I beg you would not try to divert me from the course I have chosen, for it would be both fruitless and disagreeable.’

‘Miss Hervey, I would not dream of it. I wished only to ask of your brother’s intended. I will be frank: he has not spoken of her in any terms but the most matter-of-fact – where they are to live and such like. Do you know the lady?’

Elizabeth again quickened her pace, as much as to say she was on safer ground and could proceed without circumspection. ‘I have met Lady Lankester the once but could form no opinion of her. If Matthew has concluded that she will make him a good wife then I can have nothing more to do with it.’

Fairbrother noted the return of acerbity. He wondered if Elizabeth were making the point that in denying her brother the right to interfere in her own choice of partner in the marriage stakes, she must likewise forfeit that right. But he was inclined to proceed with a certain blitheness, if only to bring the matter to an amicable close. ‘Well, I may judge for myself, for I believe we shall go to Hertfordshire soon.’

Elizabeth stopped suddenly, her ears pricked. The call of the cuckoo came again, clearly and not so very distant. ‘The cuckoo, Captain Fairbrother.’ She smiled, happily – the first he had seen her smile thus. ‘I walk these lanes every day, and it is the first cuckoo I have heard this spring.’

‘Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! ’

‘Indeed, Captain Fairbrother! You like Wordsworth?’

‘I do – very much so, Miss Hervey. He was a little contrary, though, was he not? A vile, unholy bird did he not call the cuckoo elsewhere?’

‘I believe he did,’ said Elizabeth, smiling, a little wry. ‘But I believe a poet, at least, might be allowed some contrariness of opinion – as any man.’

Fairbrother smiled to himself.

‘Where does the cuckoo go in winter? Or do they merely stay silent? Oh, I had not thought: are there cuckoos in Jamaica?’

Fairbrother returned her smile, which had now its usual sweetness. ‘Oh, indeed yes, Miss Hervey. And very gay-painted they are – unlike, I imagine, your English birds!’

‘I confess I have never seen one, in winter or in summer. And I may say, Captain Fairbrother, that never have I heard its call with such pleasure.’

She said it so decidedly, not a trace wistful.

Fairbrother fancied he understood, for both Elizabeth’s face and manner were ever open and expressive. Many summers must have come and gone, and many a village wedding, yet his friend’s sister had remained in her unwed state, every summer the same, but a year older – riper, as the Prayer Book so felicitously put it – until now, when there was the happy prospect before her of matrimony. And undoubtedly to a man she loved, and rather passionately it seemed. Perhaps there was even the prospect of children, for Elizabeth Hervey was surely not beyond the age of childbearing?

‘Georgiana, you would do well to keep your heels lowered,’ said Hervey, somewhat peremptorily.