Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War (5 page)

Hervey’s acquaintance with the much younger wife of the governor of Alderney and Sark had begun at the place that was their present destination some seven years previously. That evening while, so to speak, he still wore mourning bands, Hervey had been a guest at Apsley House in his own right, if a very junior one. The duke had reason for personal gratitude to him, and undemonstrative though he was, the Duke of Wellington was not a man to make light of such things. Three years earlier, Hervey had covered the duke’s tracks in India in respect of certain . . . pecuniary considerations. And although too, the year before at Waterloo, the then Cornet Hervey had only been one of many officers who had done their duty with skill and devotion, the duke had a special regard for it; Hervey had learned of useful intelligence and imparted it to the Prussians with commendable address. It could not be claimed that his action had changed the course of the battle, but in so close-run a thing as Waterloo, his action, to the duke’s mind, was of rare worth. Nevertheless Hervey considered it singular to have been invited to dine at Number One, London, that first evening. He could recall as if yesterday the duke’s bluff, manly words of condolence on his bereavement: ‘I am glad to see you returned to the colours. In all the circumstances it is the place to be.’

What had made that evening so particularly agreeable, however, was his neighbour at table. He had thought Lady Katherine Greville as handsome a woman as any he had met. She was witty and well informed, and, perhaps because of the standing she enjoyed as the wife of a senior officer, she possessed a self-assurance that allowed her to be, as some had it,
forward.
And this in spite of – perhaps even because of – her husband’s presence. Lieutenant-General Sir Peregrine Greville KCB was twenty-two years her senior. They had met when she was but nineteen and he a colonel on garrison duty in Ireland. She had at that time been to London only the once, and had seen only two seasons in Dublin, but the Earl of Athleague had been pleased to be able to marry off his third daughter without need for a great settlement (which had been, in any case, beyond him). Thereafter Sir Peregrine, with his own not inconsiderable means, the support of an attractive and vivacious young wife and now connections with the Irish peerage, advanced steadily in rank, filling many a senior appointment whose only requirement was steadfast Tory principles. There had been no issue.

In the seven years since that dinner at Apsley House, Hervey and Lady Katherine had engaged in a warm, even intimate, correspondence – so intimate, indeed, that on more than one occasion Hervey had found himself puzzling as to how it could have become so, their connection having been formed by nothing more than conversation at table and a ride in Hyde Park the next day, albeit the latter unaccompanied. He flattered himself that Lady Katherine enjoyed the company of vigorous men – and they her, as he recalled the duke’s attentions that evening – but India and seven years was an extreme range for so persistent an inclination when there were so many bucks in London. For his part, she filled a significant void in his human intercourse (he had been happy when he found the intimacy of their letters was at once transferred to the vocal), for certain matters he could not speak of so easily with his fellows, preferring instead a female ear. That much had been the signal discovery of his short life with Henrietta. He had been able to speak with her of anything. It was impossible before and since that he should do so with his sister, the female of his longest acquaintance, and certain reasons of propriety had forbidden the same with Emma Lucie, the wife of his good friend in Bengal. And it was wholly impossible that he should have been able to do so with his bibi, for they had been formed in such different worlds that, whatever their common instincts, there would have been only frustration and vexation.

Vaneeta.
Theirs had been an unusually long association for Bengal, and one that had brought him far fuller satisfaction than such unions were contracted to bring. Vaneeta had been so much more than his ‘sleeping-dictionary’, for she had possessed intelligence as well as beauty, and considerable grace, so that she was by no means out of water in the company of the other officers, as indeed befitted the high caste of her mother’s line. If only Calcutta were what it had been thirty years before, the place of Warren Hastings and the easy familiarity between the races, he would have been able to consort with her openly instead of having to set her up in some hole-in-the-wall
haveli and
visit her like . . .

But Vaneeta was now his past, as India with all its other delights – and dangers – was. He had rarely felt so low as when they had parted, she sobbing so much that he thought she would faint, or worse. But he had left her a rich woman by the country’s standards, making over his jagirs in Chintal to her. And he had had Emma Lucie promise to keep watch on her for as long as she was able, and to take whatever measures were necessary, in his name, should there be the slightest sign of indigency.

‘Matthew?’

Lady Katherine’s insistence, and her hand on his, recalled him to the present.

‘I’m sorry, Kat, I was—’

‘Some miles away.’

He smiled. ‘Many miles away. But I’m here now. Forgive my inattention.’

‘Well, you said you had need of my support. I imagine that your thoughts were so engaged.’

How easy it was to let her form his excuse for him. Absolute integrity demanded that he correct her; but time was running on. ‘Kat, I have to get myself appointed to something – something active. I can’t stay indefinitely at Hounslow.’

It was not what she wanted to hear, though it was half expected. Her hand was still on his, affectionate, supportive. She squeezed as she spoke. ‘Why do you not simply purchase your promotion, and be content with the increase in responsibility? I’m loath to see you go away so soon after returning.’

He put his hand on hers by return. ‘Kat, it’s not as easy as that. There are no vacancies in the regiment, and I couldn’t bear to buy in elsewhere.’

‘And what does your colonel say? He’s a good man by your accounts. Can he not arrange things for you?’

He smiled as he squeezed her hand. ‘He is a good man, but so are there many, and he has no influence. In any case, he is selling out.’

Kat started slightly. ‘Then why should you not be the lieutenant-colonel? You are a major.’

Hervey smiled again. ‘Ten years ago it might have been possible, but the rules are enforced so much the stricter now. My brevet carries no seniority against any with a regimental majority. Besides which, I could never afford the price. Fifteen thousand is what they’re saying.’

Kat was silent for the moment, as if taken aback by the amount. She squeezed his hand firmly. ‘I may lend you it,’ she said, decidedly.

Hervey was overcome by several emotions at one and the same time. First was an astonished gratitude for such reckless generosity, then an equal sense of being touched that it was bestowed on him, then an excitement at the prospect of advancement, and finally dismay as the actuarial implications began to dawn. He lifted her hand and kissed it. ‘Kat, that is so wonderfully kind. But it is out of the question. It just could not stand.’

Kat looked disappointed, but was not inclined to question him. Instead she clasped her free hand to his arm and pulled herself closer. ‘The offer will remain, Matthew. But whatever else you want me to do you had better say. What is it that can actively engage you to advantage, and which I might have some part in effecting?’

Hervey leaned back so that his head rested on the padded seat, almost touching hers. ‘There’s something bound to happen in Greece – the duke’s mission to St Petersburg, and talk of secret treaties. I believe we shall be in some sort of alliance with the tsar against the sultan before very long, perhaps with the French too, and there will be opportunity for distinction in such an adventure.’

Kat sat forward and looked straight at him. ‘There will be opportunity for
oblivion
indeed! What can possess you to think in such terms after the tribulations and dangers you have known these past two years?’

Hervey returned her look, half bemused. ‘Kat, I am a soldier; fighting is my business – my livelihood, no less.’

‘Hah! What irony there is in those words, Matthew.’

He squeezed her hand.

‘So you wish me to speak with the duke?’

It was precisely what he wanted, yet it seemed so indecent a proposition . . .

‘Come, Matthew. There is no cause for coyness.’ Kat shook his arm as if to revive a sleepy child. ‘The duke takes evident satisfaction in pleasing me with little things. I cannot suppose that in his lofty scheme of affairs the favouring of an officer is so very great a thing.’

‘No,’ said Hervey, swallowing hard. That it should come to this – the charms of a married woman, the flattery of an older man for the benefit of a younger one: how recondite a system it was. He would not be defeated by it though. He had disregarded it for many a year, and what had that profited him? No, he would master the game. But it would be to worthy ends. He wanted rank not for its own sake but because with rank he could accomplish what he knew was right. That was what placed him apart from General Slade, and Lord Towcester (still the old wound ached), and knaves of their like; and for that matter old fools such as Sir Peregrine, who by their indolence and complacency were often as not the cause of brave men’s deaths as much as any witless but courageous officer.

‘He is a little out of sorts, though, the duke; not
quite
as susceptible to entreaties as he may once have been.’

There was a degree of mystery, no doubt deliberate, in Kat’s remark.

‘And why should that be?’ asked Hervey, happy to be intrigued.

‘Harriette Wilson.’

‘Harriette Wilson? How—’ He had heard that the memoirs of (how to describe Harriette Wilson?) this most beguiling courtesan were making many a man run scared; but hardly the
duke?
Anyway, had he not told the blackmailing publisher to do his worst and go to hell? ‘What does she say of him?’

Kat took a little volume from the door pocket.

Hervey frowned, but sportively. ‘Don’t tell me you are reading her tittle-tattle.’

‘I am. And I am spellbound of it too. You would not believe what she writes.’ Kat began leafing through it until finding her mark. ‘Hear what she says—’

‘Kat, it would be insupportable! We are about to dine with him!’

‘Just so, Matthew, and it is as well to know what the duke must know we all know.’

Hervey shook his head in mild despair.

Kat began to read:

It was in summer, one sultry evening, that the duke ordered his coachman to set him down at the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, whence he sallied forth, on foot, to No. 2 or 3, in Berkeley Street, and rapt hastily at the door, which was immediately opened by the tawdry, well-rouged housekeeper of Mrs Porter, who, with a significant nod of recognition, led him into her mistress’s boudoir, and then hurried away, simpering, to acquaint the good Mrs Porter with the arrival of one of her oldest customers.

The carriage jolted twice as the nearside wheels caught a pothole, making the light inside flicker and Kat lose her place.

‘I have it again now: “Mrs Porter, on entering her boudoir, bowed low; but she had bowed lower still to His Grace, who had paid but shabbily for the last
bonne fortune
she had contrived to procure him.” ’

‘Kat, I really—’

‘ “Is it not charming weather?” said Mrs Porter, by way of managing business with something like decency. “There is a beautiful girl just come out,” said His Grace, without answering her question; “a very fine creature; they call her Harriette, and—” ’

‘Kat, enough! Let us imagine the memoirs are full of it, and be done.’

Kat closed the book, and smiled. ‘Indeed they are. So you may see that, for all the duke’s bold words to his blackmailer-publisher, he has some cause for discretion at the present.’

They arrived at Apsley House at five minutes past nine. The lateness of the dinner hour did not suit the duke, who preferred to dine modestly between seven and eight, and to retire by eleven. However, in these uncertain times, while parliament stood prorogued, it was Lord Liverpool’s practice to hold meetings of his cabinet in the early evening.

‘You will find the house little changed,’ said Kat as they pulled up at the porticoed entrance to the yard. ‘Although the duke has noble plans for it.’

‘I am glad of it,’ said Hervey, pushing the box spurs back into his patent boots in readiness to alight. ‘I thought its appearance too mean when first I saw it.’ He had no pretensions in this, neither did it flow from hero-worship; the face of the Duke of Wellington’s townhouse was to him a measure of the nation’s very esteem to the army as a whole.

‘You will find the duke altered in appearance, though,’ added Kat, as Hervey stepped down from the chariot and held out a hand to her. ‘Quite fat and fresh he is since his sojourn in St Petersburg.’

Hervey took her words to be exaggeration.

There was no band playing in the yard this evening, unlike that first occasion, but as before there were non-commissioned officers of the Grenadier Guards augmenting the footmen, and aides-decamp in attendance, although the scale of affairs seemed much reduced from before, and there were not nearly so many carriages.

‘We shall be about twenty, the duke said. A good number; we shall all be able to hear him.’ There was no hint of irony in Kat’s voice.

And Hervey was pleased at the prospect of hearing him, for besides the pleasant courtesy of escorting Kat, his especial interest in accepting her invitation was not merely to show himself but to learn whatever intelligence there was that might assist his design for advancement.

They made their way into the entrance hall, as drably painted as before, he noted, though lit as brilliantly, then handed their cloaks to a footman, and Hervey his card, and made their way to the spiral staircase which would take them to the principal floor. At its foot they paused to cast an eye over the towering statue of the nude Bonaparte which had been their first occasion for words that evening seven years ago.