A Close Run Thing (22 page)

As he neared the edge of the estate he saw the yeomanry again, leaving the park, and they looked more than usually purposeful. He had not known they were to have a drill day and was surprised to see Styles at the head of them. ‘Haven’t time to dawdle with you, Hervey. There’s work to be done,’ he called loftily as they broke into a trot.

Armstrong rode up with a resigned look. ‘Afternoon, Mr ’Ervey sir. They’re off to sabre some poor noddle-heads hereabouts.’

‘What?’

‘Seems there’s a gang intent on breaking up
machinery
at Hindon and the justices have called out the yeomanry. Mr Styles asked me to go with ’em but I said I’d rather not if he didn’t mind. An’ d’you know what he said? “Damn you for a Luddite yerself, Serjeant – or don’t the regulars have the stomach for it?”’

‘Ass!’ rasped Hervey.

‘Well, yer cannee get sense out’r haddock on a Saturday night,’ pronounced Armstrong in his broadest Tyneside. ‘An’ yer wastin’ yer time the rest o’ the week an’ all! Come on, sir, don’t worry about it. Come on back to me lodgings and we’ll toast the regiment.’

‘No, Serjeant Armstrong – tempted as I am. Orders for Cork have arrived: you and I are to be there in a week or so, and there is much to be done. And, besides, today is a fast day,’ he added with a smile.

Armstrong looked appalled. ‘Well, I for one will go and drink to our return to the regiment!’ he said, striking his boot with his whip. ‘Oh, an’ by the way, Miss Lindsay has been looking for you, and proper keen to see you she appeared to be.’

Hervey was at once quickened by this report, though he tried to look otherwise. ‘Very well, then, Serjeant, I am for home: I will see you at the Bell some time tomorrow or the day after when arrangements for Cork are made.’ And he turned the bay sharply back in the direction of the village, putting him into a fast trot.

He did not expect to encounter Henrietta so soon, but as he rounded a corner a half-mile on, he found her walking her hack, alone, in the same direction. His
bay’s
hoofs on the hard-baked road gave away his approach, and she turned. ‘Mr Hervey!’ she called, ‘I was on my way to ask Elizabeth and you to come with me to the great henge tomorrow. Shall you?’ she asked, in a manner altogether warmer than ever he had observed at the drill ground.

‘With the greatest of pleasure, ma’am. I have not seen the henge since we shared the schoolroom. I cannot speak for Elizabeth, of course, but I am sure—’

‘I am going that way,’ she replied. ‘I will ride with you and save you the trouble of sending word. Tell me, do you cherish those schoolroom days?’

He sighed to himself. She was the model of self-possession, more captivating than ever. Her riding habit was the same blue as the Sixth’s uniform, its finely cut bodice accentuating her slender waist, and the full skirt, reaching almost to the ground, was all elegance. Her black silk hat was oiled to a high gloss, her dark tresses were pulled back, and her blue eyes shone. ‘I might wish we were there still.’

Even as they rode to the village, however, his doubts began returning. Why had she chosen now to reveal a warmth hitherto concealed? It was not as if she had known he was about to leave. And when she had said ‘Poor Hugo will be away at Hindon for several days, I fear’, it seemed both invitation and caution. But was he under some obligation to Styles in the lieutenant’s absence in aid of the civil power? So many questions of propriety did the circumstances pose that instead he fell into silent confusion.

When, an hour or so later, Henrietta had left the vicarage with his sister’s acceptance of the invitation to the henge, he resolved to end his dilemma. ‘Elizabeth, I must speak with you about … that is, I should welcome your opinion as to …’ But he was again unable to summon the words.

Hervey was relieved that there was a fourth occupant of Henrietta’s barouche, and especially pleased with who the occupant was (the early return of Styles would have been more than he could have borne). The evening before, John Keble had called on his way to Oxford from Lyme Regis where he had been taking the sea air and writing poetry. At first Hervey had thought that the object of his calling might have been Elizabeth, for whom the poet seemed to have formed a strong regard at his first visit (and Hervey had begun increasingly to think that this would be a wholesome match). But John Keble had no other object but to deliver letters of introduction to several clerics beneficed in the neighbourhood of Cork and Dublin, a gesture of kindness for which Hervey made fulsome show of gratitude. And when Elizabeth had asked him to join them for the excursion to the henge Hervey, too, pressed him to accept, word being sent to Longleat that, with Henrietta’s leave, a man of letters would accompany them in the morning.

An hour or so before their barouche departed, another coach, not so grand but also bearing the Bath arms, left Longleat for the same destination. It
conveyed
the elaborate luncheon and the attendants who were to serve it – and Serjeant Armstrong. He had learned of the excursion from one of the Longleat lady’s maids, whose coolness towards him hitherto had had a most beguiling effect, and he had offered his services as guard, ingeniously citing the trouble at Hindon to gain a favourable response (forfeiting, thereby, a soldier’s farewell from one of the kitchen maids at his lodgings).

If Armstrong’s conversation in the first barouche was of an unusually respectable nature, however (sensible as he was of the lady’s maid’s disposition), that in the principal carriage was positively high-minded, for John Keble’s presence, mannered yet warm though he was, seemed not at first to admit of gaiety. Elizabeth was troubled by the disturbances at Hindon, it seemed, fearing that they might spread to the malcontents on Warminster Common. John Keble believed the situation to be a paradigm for the general condition of the realm, and spoke with some passion, and evident knowledge, of poverty in the cities, and also in Ireland. ‘You will do well there, Mr Hervey, to keep clear of the disputes between the owners and their tenants, for it is very bitter, much worse than here, more bitter than you can possibly imagine, fuelled as it is by religious bigotry.’

Hervey nodded.

‘An unhappy place indeed, Mr Keble,’ agreed Elizabeth.

‘As unhappy as ever a country could be, I believe,
Miss
Hervey, and the scars are deep. There is a saying there: “Old sins cast long shadows”.’

‘Whose are the greater sins there, Mr Keble?’ asked her brother. ‘Is it possible to discern? For I have read of perfidy on all sides.’

‘It is without doubt a confused and confusing story, I am the first to admit. Neither am I the best to tell it. Indeed, I know it very imperfectly. You must call on Canon Verey in Cork as soon as you are able, and he will tell you fairly. He is of the same mind as those in the Church of which we spoke when last we dined together. He is leading his congregation back to proper observance and will do great things.’

But Henrietta would have done with politics. ‘I do not like only talk of trouble, especially now we learn that Mr Hervey is to go away so very soon. Mr Keble, you have been composing poetry at Lyme, have you not? May we hear some?’

John Keble blushed. ‘Lady Henrietta, you are most flattering. I should in ordinary have been honoured to read some, but that which I have been composing recently is of a religious nature and, because of the sentiments you express, not, I think, what you have in mind. I do, however, have some Shelley with me.’

‘
Shelley
, Mr Keble! You do surprise me,’ she replied with a smile which conveyed nothing but approval nevertheless.

Hervey looked mystified: ‘Shelley, ma’am?’

But Henrietta did not catch his meaning in the inflection (he neither knew of Shelley nor had
the
slightest idea why Henrietta might be surprised that Keble should carry his poetry), or else she did not reveal it. ‘Yes, Mr Hervey, I am quite astonished!’

‘You mean, I think,’ ventured John Keble, ‘that Shelley is a notorious atheist?’

‘
That
, Mr Keble, is the very
least
of his transgressions, is it not?’ she challenged, and with an even greater smile.

Elizabeth now resolved on some evading action to spare John Keble’s blushes. ‘I think, Mr Keble, that we are alluding to Mr Shelley’s elopement with Miss Westbrook, and she barely sixteen.’

But, before John Keble could respond, Henrietta positively shrieked with horror. ‘My dear! That is
nothing
. He has eloped once more, this very month – and to Switzerland, it seems – leaving poor sweet Harriet and two children! And his new paramour is but sixteen, too!
Really
, Mr Keble, how these Romantics have a strong attachment to innocence!’

Elizabeth was dumbfounded at her failure to avert the moment. John Keble sat in open astonishment as Hervey tried manfully to suppress the laughter which threatened to convulse him.

‘Mr Hervey,’ said Henrietta, seeing his condition and deciding he was not to be spared, ‘do you approve of Mr Shelley?’

‘I must confess, ma’am, that I do not know of either Shelley or his poetry.’

This was in truth scarcely a confession of towering ignorance, for during all the time that Shelley’s star
had
been rising Hervey had been on campaign. Conversation touching on such things was not uncommon in the regiment by any means, but six years was a long time. In the course of the next half-hour, though, the extent of his nescience was truly to disturb him: Byron, Wordsworth, and so many others, were all unfamiliar names. Had he been in some profound sleep? Milton, Dryden, Pope – these he had learned at Shrewsbury, yet not once were they spoken of. Not even Coleridge whom he had of his own volition read copiously. Southey they praised with something bordering on reverence – Elizabeth dazzled them by her discourse on
The Curse of Kehama
– yet when Hervey had become a soldier Robert Southey was known only as a hothead whose Jacobin sympathies were attracting the attention of the authorities. How might he now have become a high Tory and poet laureate? And then John Keble read some (unpublished) sonnets by a surgeon’s apprentice whose work he predicted would yet surpass even Southey’s. The war, it seemed to Hervey, had touched little beyond the battlefield.

But in the midst of this feast of letters Henrietta gave Hervey perhaps the surest sign of her regard: ‘Matthew, will you tell us something of the countryside of Spain? I believe it can be called magnificent, can it not?’

It was not merely that she had said ‘Matthew’ (she had not called him by his name since his return), it was her evident sensibility in so changing the course of their
conversation
. He responded keenly, describing the landscape of the Peninsula as best he could, though he found his words less than adequate after so much poetry, and each time he appeared to be nearing a conclusion Henrietta would smile encouragingly, prompting him to reminisce yet more. When he recounted the aftermath of the battle at Toulouse, John Keble pressed him to details of the nunnery, which he then recalled in more precise terms.

‘I conclude from your description of their dress and rule that your Sister Maria is a discalced Carmelite,’ said Keble at length.

Henrietta giggled. ‘That sounds faintly disreputable!’

John Keble smiled: he was getting the measure of her. ‘No, Lady Henrietta; the Carmelites are a very ancient order which trace their origins to the desert fathers on Mount Carmel.
Discalced
simply means that the order goes barefoot. It is part of their austere regimen.’

‘Do not you remember,’ smiled Elizabeth, ‘
calceus
– a shoe?’

‘Of course. How could one forget those days in the schoolroom! How I admired Matthew for the way he could decline a noun!’

Hervey shifted in his seat, unsure whether her remark portended a return to mocking. But he did not have to trouble with a reply, for the appearance of the great henge itself, a half-mile distant, brought instead little cries of awe and appreciation from Henrietta. And the object of that appreciation was not only the
henge
, for here, on the eastern extremity of the plain, as empty as it must have been in the earliest times but for sheep grazing unattended, the resplendence of Longleat House had been transported to the middle of the ancient stone circle. Silver stood on damask tablecloths, wine lay chilling in huge coolers, and gilded chairs were arranged by a round table. Two footmen, conceding nothing to the heat of the day, neither wig nor livery, attended close by.

‘Have you seen the stones before, Mr Keble?’ asked Henrietta as they got down from the carriage, feigning not to be overly distracted by the Longleat extravagance.

‘Only once, ma’am, but I have read much of them.’

‘They were erected by the Romans were they not?’

‘No, I do not think so,’ he replied. ‘That is what Mr Inigo Jones concluded because he did not believe any people of antiquity in these islands other than the Romans could have carried out such a task. He was an architect of the classical school, and it is therefore not surprising that that was what he conceived it to be. He made a very fine drawing showing how the stone circle might have looked as a classical building. But it is very circumstantial – indeed, almost wholly conjectural, I would say.’

‘What of the theory that it was a place of coronation for the Danish kings?’ suggested Hervey.

‘It is remarkable that whoever has treated of this monument has bestowed on it whatever class of antiquity he was particularly fond of.’

‘That is a very shrewd judgement,’ he replied.

‘Oh, not my words, Mr Hervey – Horace Walpole’s. No, of all theories I think the Danish is the least convincing. There is sufficient literary evidence to suggest it is much earlier.’

‘Then, what do you think is the explanation of the stones, sir?’ Hervey pressed.

‘Well, I consider that Mr Aubrey’s study is the most scholarly. He suggests that the henge is a religious site of the Ancient Britons and their priesthood, the Druids.’

‘Ritual sacrifices?’ said Hervey.

‘I fear so.’