Man Of War

In a quarter of an hour more, the chaise turned into the long, metalled drive of Walden Park. Hervey looked at his watch – a little before midday. He had said in his express that he was uncertain what time precisely they would arrive, but even so, the footmen were sharp about the chaise when after five minutes at a good trot it drew up at the entrance to the great Elizabethan mansion.

The two friends alighted, adjusting their neckcloths self-consciously. Hervey paid off the coachman and arranged refreshment for him and for the horses, then led his friend up the ten impressively wide steps to the vault-arched doorway.

Inside, the only sound was of a fortepiano, and not too distant. It stopped abruptly, and a moment or so later Lady Lankester appeared. She smiled – welcomingly enough, thought Fairbrother, but without great ardour (and he wondered again if he intruded) – and Hervey and she kissed, fleetingly.

‘How good you are come,’ said Kezia, and turning to Fairbrother, smiled warmly: ‘And this is the companion of whom you wrote so keenly.’

Hervey’s companion bowed. ‘Edward Fairbrother, Lady Lankester.’

Kezia did not curtsy, but held out her hand.

Hervey had marked, before, Kezia’s preference in her manner of greeting. Combined with such a smile as hers it was ever the more welcoming. ‘We left London betimes, but the carting traffic was savage,’ he explained. ‘We did not manage a trot before, I think, Edgware. The Romans would have been faster along Watling-street than we. You were practising just now?’

‘You know that I practise for three hours every day.’

The manner of Kezia’s reminding – almost a rebuke – told him very decidedly that he must know (truly he had no recollection of it). ‘Well,’ (he cleared his throat) ‘Fairbrother and I returned to London only yesterday. As I said in my letter, there was urgent business to be about in Wiltshire and in Hounslow. But we are here now, and delightful it is, at last.’

They sat down near a window in the morning room. A footman brought a tray, followed by another bearing a coffee pot.

Fairbrother sensed a certain stiffness, and was inclined to ascribe it to his presence. He made to rise. ‘I think perhaps I ought to see our boxes—’

‘Oh no, Mr Fairbrother,’ Kezia protested. ‘All will be attended to, I assure you. Take your ease with some coffee, and tell me how you find London. Colonel Hervey says you have not been in England before. Did you visit the Royal Academy? There is a fine exhibition there, is there not? You have seen Mr Turner’s paintings, Colonel?’

Hervey frowned. It was rather like finding his horse on the wrong leg as they turned. ‘I confess I have not, yet.’

Kezia looked dismayed.

But he would make no more apology: it was true that military business did not always require his attention when he was in London, but there were other things to be about than looking at paintings, however fine. He made to change the subject. ‘Where is Perdita?’

Kezia turned towards the fortepiano. Perdita lay curled on a chair next to the piano stool, silently eyeing him. ‘Come, Perdi,’ she said.

The little Italian greyhound slid from the chair, stretched, and stalked to her mistress’s side. She sat, without taking her eyes off the interloper.

The three talked for a quarter of an hour, of this and that, inconsequential matters, until Fairbrother rose again, managing this time to beg his leave successfully. Kezia told him that in the evening they would drive to Knebworth, to a soirée which its chatelaine, General Bulwer Lytton’s widow, was hosting. Fairbrother enquired whether he would be intruding, saying that he was perfectly content to remain at Walden: he had with him several books. To which Kezia protested that he was most welcome: Mrs Bulwer Lytton held these gatherings almost weekly during the close season, and new faces were most positively encouraged. ‘The mere mention of books, Mr Fairbrother, assures me that our hostess will find your company agreeable. The soirées are of a literary and artistic bent.’

‘Shall you sing,’ (Hervey hesitated) ‘dearest?’

Kezia rose and turned to him with an almost puzzled look. ‘If I am asked to do so, yes.’

Fairbrother bowed. ‘I am all eagerness, Lady Lankester,’ he said, smiling confidently. And he left the promised couple to each other.