Man Of War

Hervey put down his coffee cup and made to embrace his betrothed. Even though he had stumbled in the preliminaries, he had been studiously admiring of Kezia’s appearance. Her fair hair intrigued him more with every meeting: he had not had any proper acquaintance before with such a colour and complexion. Strange as it was, she seemed to him almost . . . foreign. More so than Isabella Delgado, or even Vaneeta. Her mouth was quite perfect: any scholar of the ideal of beauty would admit it. Nothing like as full as Kat’s, or Isabella’s, or Vaneeta’s (or Henrietta’s), but appealing to him for its very . . . he supposed, distance. Her form, a constrained grace which provoked the imagination, was powerfully pleasing, and greatly the more so for his absence these past nine months. The checked Levantine, her arms and bosom covered to throat and wrist (its being ‘morning’ still), only served to increase his admiration.

They kissed. She did not resist, though she did not give herself up to any passion. Hervey understood. It was not her sitting room; they might be disturbed at any moment. He caught Perdi eyeing him still – a reproachful eye, threatening, almost.

‘Dearest, I am so very glad to see you. There is much to speak of.’

Kezia glanced at the fortepiano.

‘Do I disturb your practice?’

She looked a shade wistful. ‘In truth you do, but it was discourteous of me to reveal it.’

Hervey shook his head, smiling apologetically. ‘Would you play for me?’

‘Play for you, Colonel Hervey?’

He frowned. ‘Is it so outrageous a suggestion? And . . . Kezia,’ (he pronounced her name – for the first time – somewhat tentatively) ‘would you dispense with the formality of that manner of address?’

Kezia raised her eyebrows. ‘What would you have me call you?’

Hervey sighed. ‘Well, I have a given name, as you.’ Few but his close family used it (and Kat).

She smiled a very little, but wryly, so that Hervey felt drawn to kiss her again – which she did not object to.

‘You are very fond of music, I know, since you told me so at Sezincote, and we have had so little opportunity to speak of it.’ She sat at the fortepiano again while Hervey resumed his place by the window. ‘Did you recognize the piece I was playing as you arrived?’

Hervey had not the slightest idea. He had declared a love of music while in something of a heady state, having heard Kezia sing at the house in which they were both staying in company with Sir Eyre and Lady Somervile. He liked music – or, as Elizabeth had often chided, he liked the noise it made, especially if it were made by men in uniform.

That evening at Sezincote, he managed to recall (though how, he could not say), Kezia had sung something – two things – by a German called Gluck.

‘Might it be by Herr Gluck?’

Kezia frowned. ‘Oh, Matthew Hervey!’

Her use of his Christian name, even so-qualified, encouraged him to return a rueful half smile. ‘Not Gluck?’

‘Do not you recognize Der Erlkönig?’ She sounded dismayed.

It was time for honesty, though he would instantly regret it. ‘I confess I never heard of him.’

‘Oh, Colonel Hervey! Erlkönig is the name of the piece I was playing. It is by Franz Schubert. You have heard of Schubert, I take it?’

Hervey sighed. ‘I was a long time in India, ma’am.’

Kezia looked at him almost studiously, and for some time. ‘Of course. Forgive me,’ she said softly.

There was nothing to forgive. And if there had been he would have done so readily. Kezia Lankester was a picture of scholarship, of a serious, high mind, the like of which he had not seen in a woman, certainly not one so young. Or so powerfully attractive. He thought to reply that Erlkönig was first a poem by Goethe, but he could not. At that moment he wished only that the nuptials were over and done with.

After a lunch of pigeon breasts, Hervey and Kezia walked in the formal gardens while Fairbrother ranged further.

‘My parents will hasten back if I send word, I do assure you,’ said Kezia.

Hervey had placed her arm in his. ‘I would not disturb their ease. I have been to Southwold; it is very agreeable.’ Sir Delaval and Lady Rumsey had left Hertfordshire but three days before for the sea air, which Sir Delaval’s doctor prescribed twice yearly. ‘The arrangements are easily made. You are quite sure you would not wish the wedding from here . . . or Hounslow?’

‘I am quite sure. And my parents are in agreement. Quietly from my aunt’s in Hanover-square, and the wedding breakfast there afterwards. I see no occasion for greater ceremony.’

Hervey was not too strongly of a contrary opinion. He understood that, her marriage to Sir Ivo having been at Walden, she would not wish to return to that church again; and he certainly appreciated the advantages of London; but he had hoped that it might be somehow a little more . . . regimental. Lord John Howard had even suggested they might avail themselves of St James’s Palace.

‘You would not object to my non-commissioned officers attending on us, would you?’