Man Of War

28th March 1827My dear Captain Peto,Let me at once say that I accept your offer of marriage with the very greatest delight. I perfectly understand that you were not able to travel to Wiltshire, and I am only content that you did not delay until you were able to do so. For my part, I should have wished at once to accept, but you will understand that I felt a certain obligation to my brother, though I could never have doubted his approval.I am so very happy too at your news of command, though I shall confess also that my happiness is tempered considerably by the thought that H.M.S. Prince Rupert is taking you so very distant. But that is the way of things, and you may be assured that I shall never be a jealous wife where your ship is concerned!I am so very proud, too, that your command is to be in the Mediterranean, not only for its healthiness and beauty but because I believe it a very noble thing that we should assist the Greeks in their endeavours to shake off the Ottoman yoke. You will, of course, be now daily in my prayers – I think I may say constantly – and they will be for your safe and speedy return.My father will make the usual arrangements for the notice of our betrothal, which I must trust shall be to your liking.I hasten to close this, though I would write so very much more were there the time, for the express boy is come even now, and trust that you shall receive it before you sail.Your ever affectionate

Elizabeth Hervey

Peto read it a second time, and then a third. It was the first letter in a female hand that he had ever received. He had no certainty of the tone or convention, but he considered it the warmest expression of esteem. How different it felt – strangely different – taking to sea with a wife awaiting his return (for he already imagined her in the Norfolk drawing room, wed): his world was no longer wholly wooden, sea-girt and male.

He folded the letter, replaced it between the bindings, wrapped it in the oilskin and put it back into his pocket. As he did so he thought again of Elizabeth’s sisterly duty – so admirable a thing – and then the object of that duty, and wondered how was his friend in southern waters. Perhaps – his own new command notwithstanding – he might even envy Hervey a little, for would not his friend have more prospect of the smell of black powder than would he himself in the Ionian? The native tribes of the Cape Colony would know no better than to chance against His Majesty’s land forces; but the Turk must know that he could have no fight at sea with a first-class naval power. And certainly not with three.

He drained his cup, and glanced about his new quarters – new, but entirely familiar, for the difference between these and his earlier quarters was more of scale than design, or even luxury. He looked at the painting of Nisus, his first command – Flowerdew had fixed it on the starboard bulkhead exactly as it had been on Liffey, his last. He had loved Nisus – a frigate of, to his mind, most excellent proportions – to the exclusion of all else. Next to the painting – portrait – of her, Flowerdew had fixed the oil of his Norfolk home, in which he had yet truly to take residence. Never, indeed, had he thought he would prize it so much as now he did, for no longer was it an unlooked-for refuge ashore, more wreckers’ yard than haven: Elizabeth Hervey – Elizabeth Peto – would one day, soon, occupy it. Truly, he told himself, he was at this moment possessed of the very best of both worlds.

II