Man Of War

He had not considered the question much when first he began writing, in Spain, as a mint-new cornet in Sir John Moore’s army, for every officer had kept a journal. He had vaguely supposed that it was filial duty of some sort. And then much later, in India, the habit long established, he had vaguely supposed it some sort of testament, to be given to Georgiana in the event that he did not return.

Except that it was testament only to events: it said next to nothing of his inner life, nor indeed of that part of his external life that he considered unedifying. There was no mention of Vaneeta, who perhaps more than anyone or anything had brought him back to some measure of a full life. He occasionally found himself wishing he had her image rather than merely a lock of that shining, raven hair.

Vaneeta had been kind to him from the very first, unconditionally (the pecuniary business had soon become not a matter of obligation but of desire); she had ministered to him in his convalescence after Rangoon, fiercely protective; and then there had been the terrible parting, when he had almost lost his head, thinking to declare that he would not leave her – and it had seemed as if she might throw herself from the walls of Fort William when the day came for the regiment to leave.

There came a terrible griping, rats scrambling in his stomach. They told him what he would not otherwise hear: that things were not finished simply because he decided they were. He quickened his step, as if somehow he might leave the uncertainty behind, or advance the sooner to that day in June when all would at last be resolved and he would be a married man once more, with the simple certainties that came with his vows, and the knowledge that he did his best for a daughter he had hitherto neglected;and, he must admit (not admit, so much, as devoutly wish for), an end at last to the wretched, unholy desire that had so often warped and twisted him like the sapling in a gale.

18 June: this was the day that Kezia had named, a Wednesday – Waterloo Day. He understood, now, the precision with which the day of the wedding was named by a bride: he would not, as he had with Henrietta, ask that she consider another for the sake of regimental convenience. He smiled as he recalled Henrietta’s exasperation, the first time he had seen her in the least discomfited, when after he had shown no understanding she had blushed and lowered her eyes and said ‘Do not have me spell it out!’ No, this time there would be no such callowness. Even though it would mean that not all of the officers would be able to come – Waterloo would be celebrated in some style, and by all ranks, at Hounslow – he would not raise the slightest objection.

And on Sunday next he would go to divine worship at St George’s in Hanover Square, and hear the banns read for the first time: ‘I publish the Banns of Marriage between Kezia . . .’ (he did not know her other names) ‘Lankester, widow, of the parish of All Saints, St Paul’s Walden, in the diocese of London, and Matthew Paulinus Hervey, widower of the parish of St John the Baptist, Horningsham, in the diocese of Salisbury . . .’

He had given his father’s as his parish, for his name was on the roll there still, and inasmuch as he thought of anywhere as home it was Horningsham. Soon, though, he would be able to think of home as the Cape Colony, and then (dare he imagine it?) Hounslow. The place did not matter: wherever Kezia was would be his home from now on. It was comfort indeed. Comfort of unconscionable measure. How could Fairbrother be expected to understand it?

XV

THE IMMORTAL MEMORY

The Ionian, the twentieth day at sea, 18 October 1827

Peto’s launch cut through the light swell with the ease of a knife through fresh-churned butter. The same midshipman of the golden locks and fine, if boyish, features who had brought him aboard Rupert at Gibraltar kept the stroke sharp by the set of his jaw and the steely resolve in his blue eyes. For not only was his captain in the boat, they approached the flagship, and in all probability the admiral watched their boatwork.