A Close Run Thing (20 page)

Her principal difficulty, however, lay in first comprehending, and then finding the appropriate words to describe, the sentiments and purposes of the three (as she put it)
dramatis personae
. Henrietta gave her most cause for perplexity, for her demeanour throughout the evening suggested some ‘understanding’ with Styles, although she had never confided anything of the sort. And Elizabeth began to doubt whether, indeed, she might claim any particular fellowship with her in light of this. Styles himself, she observed, had carried about him a sort of proprietorial air which at times verged on the possessive. It was evident, too, that this was exacerbated – perhaps deliberately encouraged even – by the attention that Henrietta showed to Matthew. Though, curiously, it seemed to her that Styles was more discomfited by adulation of Hervey as a soldier than by what Henrietta’s notice might truly portend.

Of her brother, Elizabeth was in a state of mild despair. She had hoped that his service might have wrought something more masterful in him, yet last night he had been as ever. During dinner itself he had seemed at ease enough: there were occasions when he might even have been said to be expressive. Yet when coffee was served, and with it a renewal of Henrietta’s childhood teasing, he had relapsed into silence, whence nothing could tempt him for the remainder of the evening.

At length she sighed, aloud and deep. She picked up her pen and wrote with a noticeably firmer hand than the plainer narrative had demanded: ‘I have ever held to Dryden’s avowal that none but the brave deserves the fair. And I cannot doubt that Matthew is brave, for he was ever so. Yet deserts are never wholly just, and I pray that his heart will not be faint.’

VII

WHEN PRIDE COMETH

Horningsham, The Feast Day of St Mary Magdalen, 22 July

‘O COME, LET
us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation,’ began the vicar of Horningsham.

‘Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and show ourselves glad in him with Psalms,’ came Hervey’s strong, clear response, in contrast to the frailer versicle. And so throughout the
Venite
.

The Reverend Thomas Hervey opened the smaller bible used for the daily offices and announced the first lesson while, opposite, Matthew and Elizabeth Hervey sat alone in the choir stall. ‘Here beginneth the eleventh chapter of the Book of Proverbs: “A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight. When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them …”’

As a boy Hervey had regularly attended the daily offices with his father, for whom it was the command of the Book of Common Prayer that they be said publicly: ‘And the Curate that ministereth in every Parish-Church or Chapel, being at home, and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the same in the Parish-Church or Chapel where he ministereth, and shall cause a Bell to be tolled thereunto a convenient time before he begin, that the people may come to hear God’s Word, and to pray with him.’ Since John’s going away to Oxford, and Matthew’s to the war, Elizabeth had filled the antiphonal void (for the vicar of Horningsham could afford neither curate nor clerk), though Thomas Hervey had never been entirely at ease with a woman in his chancel. There was little doubting the old man’s pleasure in having once again a son at Morning Prayer.

Afterwards, however, as they walked to the vicarage, the sun warm on their backs even at that early hour, he seemed to be at some pains to show his esteem for Elizabeth’s succour during those long years: ‘I think it a pity that, when the prayer book supplanted the breviary, St Mary Magdalen’s became no longer a holy day,’ he began, ‘for it was she to whom the risen Lord first appeared and gave a message for the brethren.’

Elizabeth saw at once his meaning: ‘And it was she who remained at the cross.’

The vicar of Horningsham nodded.

‘Could it be that her former sins stood against her still?’ wondered Hervey, somehow of the mind that
Cranmer
had been, perhaps, less forgiving than some.

‘Oh, I think not. She was a true penitent. Yet there are those in the Eastern churches, as I believe, who hold that it was not the Magdalen who was the sinner but a third woman.’

‘How so, Father? I have not heard this,’ asked Elizabeth.

‘Oh, my poor scholarship is insufficient, I am afraid. That must be a question for Mr Keble,’ he replied.

‘
Dear
Mr Keble,’ sighed Elizabeth. ‘I hope he will stay with us again, do not you, Matthew?’

Hervey agreed, for there was in John Keble’s certain faith much that gave comfort – as there had been with Sister Maria.

The thought of Sister Maria was especially apt that day, for it was the convent’s patronal festival. He felt uneasy still about his promise to her, though he was at a loss to know what more he could do as things stood: while he had been in London he had taken a letter to the French consul-general for the comte de Chantonnay; but there had been no word from France, and it looked as though the ring he carried constantly would go with him to Ireland when the time came.

When breakfast was ended Elizabeth took her journal to the garden. Hervey went with her, taking the April-quarterly edition of the
Edinburgh Review
which d’Arcey Jessope had sent him that very week, with the first article marked for his attention, a lengthy piece on ‘The State and Prospects of Europe’. ‘Do you hear
this
?’ he began after some moments perusing it. ‘“The first and predominant feeling which rises on contemplating the scenes that have just burst on our view, is that of deep-felt gratitude, and unbounded delight, – for the liberation of so many oppressed nations, – for the cessation of bloodshed and fear and misery over the fairest portions of the civilized world, – and for the enchanting prospect of long peace and measureless improvement, which seems at last to be opening on the suffering kingdoms of Europe.”’ He sighed. ‘A long peace and measureless improvement – that is a happy prospect is it not?’

‘A
truly
happy prospect,’ she replied. ‘But though improvement is contingent upon peace, certainly, it does not of itself follow. Do you suppose that
our
parliament shall embrace improvement as vigorously as they did war?’

‘Not for one moment,’ he smiled, ‘but they will pursue the dividends of peace, and some of these might as a consequence promote improvement.’

‘So you are not for
Reform
, Matthew? The marquess is, I believe, though Sir George Styles is not.’

‘Am I not so obvious a radical, then?’ he laughed. ‘I care not one jot how Styles – father or son – stand on
Reform
!’

‘When pride cometh, then cometh shame!’ she chided.

‘You were attentive during the lesson, sister.’

‘I am ever thus, I assure you! But the marquess – he has a right judgement in such things, think you not?’

‘I confess an admiration for the marquess,’ he conceded.

‘And for his ward surely?’ she teased.

‘My dear Elizabeth, we were speaking of matters of substance.’

‘And is not admiration a matter of substance?’

‘Only if the admiration is substantial!’

He was pleased with his response, but she was too quick. ‘Then you must now answer for the extent of your admiration rather than for its mere existence!’

Hervey sighed again, but he was not entirely without the skill for a riposte. ‘I confess to more admiration for Henrietta Lindsay than she for me, yet that need not amount to a very great deal.’

Elizabeth thought it prudent to make no reply, and instead she carefully recorded her brother’s assessment in her journal.

‘Tell me, Elizabeth,’ he began after several minutes’ silence, ‘you and Henrietta are close, yet …’ His words trailed off.

‘Oh, Matthew, do not scruple to speak of the truth. You mean that Henrietta is rich, or at least comparatively so, and moves in the best of society. And she is uncommonly pretty, and has graces, and …
refinement
. Whereas I—’

‘No! I did not mean it so,’ he interrupted.

‘What did you mean so, then?’

‘What I mean is that it is unjust to speak of those qualities as if the very opposite were the case with you,
for
it is
not
– well, not those which are qualities of the person for sure!’

‘You are ever sweet, Matthew! And yet, though there are differences between Henrietta and me, we are, I think,
confidantes
, or as near as may be so called. And have been so these many years, since the schoolroom with its childish intimacies. But, for my part, Henrietta’s love of society is sufficient for the both of us, for I truly do not think I have the inclination for it, as well as not having the means. And for Henrietta’s part – you must ask her, for she will freely confess to a fascination for the parish and poorhouse but only at a remove, only in my telling. She is the same person whom we knew in the schoolroom, but her circumstances permit her no true purpose in life: I can have no envy for her position. Yet I
know
there is something deeper which may inspire her. You have been here a full month: you must have some sense of this yourself?’

‘But I have seen so little of her, and then only without any intimacy in the least part. She is as distant as first she was in the park. I am to school her mare again today, but it will be the same.’

‘There is no reason, I think, why it should be. You have much that is of mutual interest: she admires greatly your facility with horses.’ Elizabeth could not bring herself to be more direct.

‘But she is so well versed in the works of the literary men – and women – of the moment that at times we may as well speak a different tongue. It would seem
that
all England has been busy with the pen these past five years.’

‘Matthew, they are, as you say, of the
moment
.’

‘Well said,’ he laughed – it was time to be done with that concern. ‘So tell me, Elizabeth, what have
you
seen of the saddle of late?’

‘Next to nothing, I confess. It is three seasons since I saw hounds.’

‘Then, at least I may remedy that. You must visit me in Ireland as soon as I am settled there: the word is that there is no finer country outside the shires.’

‘Shall I find a husband, too?’ she smiled.

‘Only if you are able to choose between the many who will propose!’

‘You are ever loyal and gallant, brother!’ she laughed. ‘I fear that it will be your undoing!’

He did not return until almost four, having spent two hours first longeing then attempting some of the simpler evolutions with Henrietta’s new mare. Afterwards she had asked him to take some refreshment at the house, but since Hugo Styles had latterly attached himself he had declined, though he was now regretting his pique.

‘The family is in the garden with a caller, Master Matthew,’ said Francis as Hervey strode into the cool darkness of the hall.

Taking tea at four was (to Hervey’s mind) a conceit lately come to Horningsham, an import from neighbouring Bath. Whose choice this was he had not been
troubled
to discover, but he would have hazarded the opinion that his mother had succumbed to the influence of Longleat House (though he would have been wrong, for Longleat held to the older custom, and it was Elizabeth who had urged the practice on the household, having read of it in one of Miss Austen’s novels). The scene in the garden of that comfortable parsonage was not one of
perfect
fashion, however, for the sight of a china teacup and saucer in a hand that Hervey had only ever seen holding either sabre or bottle was so incongruous as to be positively bizarre. The caller sprang up, deftly transferring cup and saucer from right hand to left, and knuckled his forehead, though bareheaded, as was the custom in the Sixth. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Hervey sir!’

‘Serjeant Armstrong! What in heaven’s name—? Forgive me, Father,’ he reddened, checking his mild profanity. ‘What could possibly bring you
here
?’

‘Matthew,’ began his mother before Armstrong could manage a word, ‘the serjeant has been given leave but has chosen to come to see
you
! And he has told us so much about you and the war: I cannot think why you did not tell us yourself!’

‘Oh, Mother!’ laughed Elizabeth, ‘we women are not to hear of such things! We should swoon, should we not?’

Armstrong was smiling. He looked as untroubled as if tea in a country parsonage were his everyday habit. So many times in Spain and Portugal Hervey had seen, or heard of, this rough-and-ready serjeant fighting with
the
fury of a wildcat, and yet he now seemed equally capable of charming the gentlest of souls that were his mother and father, and likewise engaging the most discriminating of mortals that was his sister. ‘Sit down, Serjeant Armstrong,’ he said with a wry smile as he took a chair himself. ‘What
really
brings you here? You have orders for me, I’ll warrant.’

By now the family had acquired a sufficient ear for Armstrong’s Tyneside vowels and idiom (as alien as anything that had been heard in the village), and were able, just, to discern that he had been sent from Dover to the depot in Canterbury to collect a draft, and that, just before he was to leave for Ireland with them, the recruits were sent instead to the Nineteenth in Canada. The depot’s commander had granted him leave (no doubt a less troublesome option, thought Hervey, than having him with time on his hands in Canterbury), and Armstrong had decided to make his way to Cork via Horningsham.