Man Of War

‘Is it to distort what you said? I cannot think so. Your sister has the wisdom and courage to recognize her error and to act on it, and yet you who have had so many years the habit of such wisdom and courage – where it touches indeed on other men’s lives as well as your own – all you can do is be a philosopher!’

‘I am resolved to make the best of things and to do my duty. Is that so very bad?’

‘It is not so much very bad as improbable.’

‘Perhaps in your philosophy.’

‘And doubtless there will be “Kat of my consolation”,’ said Fairbrother, half beneath his breath.

‘What? ’

‘Go and read your Shakespeare! He will tell you a good deal more of humanity than will your philosophers!’

Hervey left Fairbrother to his barber while he himself went on foot to Golden Square, to number 33 Great Pulteney Street, the premises of Mr John Broadwood and Sons, piano-makers to His Majesty King George IV &c. He had been once before, to buy a piano for Georgiana, and it had cost him twenty-eight guineas. This morning it was his intention to buy something altogether more substantial, a wedding present that would both delight his bride and express his admiration – and consideration – for her playing. He knew that the cost of such a piano – a grand, such as Herr Schubert himself would be pleased to sit at – would be rather greater, but he had no very good idea of by how much.

The demonstrator at the showroom quite understood that Hervey himself did not play, and endeavoured to tell him of the considerable improvements of late in the construction of the concert-grand pianoforte – the solid bars in combination with the fixed metal string-plate, the compressed-felt hammers, and so on and so on. And since, he explained, compositions for the pianoforte were now of greater range, it was de rigueur to have an instrument of six octaves, from bottom C to seventh octave F. Hervey supposed he understood that such innovations were necessary in a pianoforte to be played by someone of Kezia’s proficiency. He also wished for an instrument of appropriate beauty for his wife to sit at, and recognized therefore that rosewood was the very least he could choose for the case. The demonstrator took careful note of his requirements (the pianoforte was to be portered to Hanover Square, and thence, sometime in the autumn, shipped to the Cape Colony), and retired to his desk to render a quotation for all but the cost of the shipping room.

A few minutes later, it was in Hervey’s hands. He studied the figures carefully, trying to recall by how much they exceeded what he had imagined. ‘A hundred and eight guineas,’ he said pensively.

‘We ask for a deposit of ten per cent, sir; the balance to be paid within twenty-eight days of delivery.’

Hervey nodded, then sat down at the writing desk to arrange the transaction.

He walked back from Golden Square distinctly lightheaded. Within the past twenty-four hours he had committed himself to very nearly a year’s pay for canvas and rosewood. But it was done, and he did not regret it. He could not, in all honour, have done other than pay the balance on the portrait of Henrietta, and arrange for its completion, for where otherwise might it have been disposed? It was only right, too, that Georgiana should know her mother thus. There had once been a very pleasing portrait of her at Longleat, head and shoulders, when she had been eighteen, but that had perished one evening when the sconce candle had guttered too much and the varnish had taken alight quicker than anyone saw.

And, in truth, he wished the portrait for himself. Where it might hang, and the copy, he had no idea, though even as he walked he began realizing that the question was not principally aesthetic.

As for the pianoforte, that was an expense of an entirely proper instinct. He could think of no better way of displaying his regard for his new wife. It was a token of that regard and, too, a means of cementing their affection. Fairbrother simply did not understand these things: intention could perfectly properly precede success in the marriage state. No, he had not the slightest regret in visiting Mr Broadwood’s. He was, in fact, prodigiously pleased. There was almost a spring in his step as he turned purposefully into Regent Street to head for the office of the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, whither Howard’s letter had bidden him. It amused him, even, to think that he had deferred calling at Downing Street in order to visit a piano-maker, and he smiled at the memory of how far he had come in so many things since first he had visited the Horse Guards, all of a dozen years ago.

Hervey did not keep a journal except when he was in the field. There were too many things he would have to write, yet which, having neither the language nor the will, he knew he would be unable to set down. For whom would he write a journal, indeed?