Man Of War

Indeed he could, and if the sitter were not pressing him . . . He shook his head once more. ‘Well, it is the most extraordinary thing I ever knew. Tell me, Mr Keightley, what is to be done now?’

Sir Thomas’s agent consulted his notebook. ‘Forgive me, Colonel, but I assume you mean the pecuniary arrangements?’

Hervey was thinking more of the completion of the portrait. ‘Go on.’

‘The fee was four hundred pounds, and Lady Henrietta paid two hundred on account.’

‘Naturally I will pay the balance. Do the terms remain the same; or is there increase? It can be completed, can it not?’

‘There is no increase, Colonel. In the circumstances Sir Thomas would not hear of it.’ (Hervey would learn later that the President of the Royal Academy’s fee was now seven hundred guineas.) ‘And yes, it can be completed by a pupil. I do not suppose that the particular blue riding habit is to hand, but—’

‘I . . .’ (he could not – or would not – bring himself to recall its whereabouts) ‘I think I may be able to . . . arrange something.’

‘Very well, sir.’

He recovered himself somewhat. ‘And . . . I should like very much that Sir Thomas himself makes a copy of the head and shoulders.’

The agent looked doubtful. ‘Sir Thomas has a great many commissions to detain him, Colonel Hervey. But a pupil could execute a very faithful copy.’

‘No, I should like the hand of the man for whom my late wife sat.’

Keightley looked troubled, but recognized the powerful sentiment. ‘I shall most certainly see what can be done, Colonel.’

They walked back to the United Service. Fairbrother had taken note of the route by which they had driven to Russell Square, and when Hervey, whose mind was unquestionably elsewhere, said that he would like to take a little exercise – by which Fairbrother supposed he meant air – he was perfectly able to conduct his friend to Charles Street. They exchanged scarcely a word in the best part of the hour that it took them to negotiate the pedestrians and hawkers, horses and conveyances, which at times conjoined into a solid barrier to movement. When they reached the club they ordered hot baths, agreeing that they would dine quietly, and requested two well-chilled bottles of hock to be sent upstairs.

At eight o’clock they took a table by an open window on to the street. ‘I am conscious we have not had much entertainment since we came here,’ said Hervey absently, seeing the line of carriages waiting to deposit their occupants at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket.

‘I’m sure there will be opportunity,’ replied Fairbrother, seeking to reassure him; he was most conscious, still, of their encounter with the past in Russell Square.

A waiter brought them the menu. This was the day of the month that it changed, although there remained the staple of grills. But Hervey had little appetite for study, and when Fairbrother said he favoured the turbot and then cutlets, he was content merely to follow.

‘And to drink, gentlemen?’ asked the wine steward when their order was taken.

Fairbrother looked to Hervey, in part to tempt him back to the here and now. But Hervey seemed unable to make the effort. ‘Continue with the hock, I think . . . and a burgundy, perhaps. Might you choose for us, James?’

The wine steward made various suggestions; Hervey nodded inconclusively, until the steward saw that he must take the choice upon himself.

When he was gone, Hervey sighed and shook his head. ‘You will forgive me, Fairbrother: I do not think I may confess it to any other man . . . but the painting . . . it was the most thoroughgoing shock to me.’

Fairbrother smiled sympathetically. ‘Of course, Hervey; of course.’

‘I have her picture in my mind’s eye still with easy facility; I always have had. But to see her likeness so, standing wholly independent of any effort of imagination . . .’

‘It is as if she were here yet.’

‘Exactly so, exactly so.’ Hervey shook his head slowly, emphasizing his disbelief that it could be thus. ‘It is a very trite thing to speak of seeing a ghost. I have seen no ghost, Fairbrother. I saw her as if flesh and blood.’

Fairbrother showed not the least discomfort in either the intimacy or the sentiment. He nodded, gently, to reassure his friend. ‘I am sure.’

They began their supper with potted shrimps and desultory conversation. Fairbrother was ever patient, however. Here was not the man he had ridden with at the Cape; here was a man fettered, almost paralysed. For his friend, it seemed to him, was bound by a notion of duty that had run too far – in the case of regiment, so far as to render him (perhaps for ever) a mere compliant; and in the case of private affairs it impelled him down a road to nowhere he could rightly wish to be (certainly not to the peace he sought). But how might these things be spoken of? He had tried, and his friend had shown scant inclination to hear. Did he, Hervey, know these things already, and yet find himself unable to do what he knew he must? Was ‘duty’ but a refuge? But from what (he had seen no want of courage at the Cape)?