Allan Mallinson: A Close Run Thing

Sister Maria evidently did not consider any matters to be ultimately too pressing: ‘You are right,’ she said, ‘I am in good spirits. I am at peace with God and restored to my family: there is nothing more I could desire. But you, I perceive, are not in such spirits. Something troubles you.’

Hervey recoiled at the intrusion, just as he had the first time in Toulouse. ‘Nothing troubles me, Sister,’ he said briskly, making some unnecessary adjustment to his sword-slings and turning towards the house.

‘Mr Hervey,’ she insisted, ‘I am sorry that one year has put this distance between us.’

Her words halted him in mid-stride. He did not wish to share his thoughts with anyone now that he had been able so firmly to place them at the back of his mind (or so he thought he had placed them). Serjeant Armstrong had upbraided him for brooding that morning after the battle, and he had been careful since to avoid any such occasion for censure. But he could not pretend that this woman had no sensibility of his disquiet when she so clearly had, nor that their former vocal intimacy was erasable. He sighed. ‘Sister Maria, there is hardly time to begin to explain the circumstances, but I have on my conscience the death of a brave man. My head tells me that it should be otherwise, but not my heart. I should wish, perhaps, to tell you more, but I sail for England shortly. Time is truly pressing.’

‘Very well, Mr Hervey,’ she conceded, turning with him for the house, ‘we cannot speak of it, but I urge that you do so when you return to your country. I have been studying your prayer-book — the one you gave me. It is — how do you say — très contestataire?

‘Disputatious!’ suggested Hervey.

‘Yes, disputatious. But no matter. In its exhortation before mass — or communion as you say — the priest invites him that cannot quiet his own conscience to go to him for absolution. Do you know such a priest that might, as well as pronounce absolution, give just counsel in this?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he replied wearily.

‘Then, you must see him with no more delay than is strictly necessary for your other duties.’

Hervey agreed.

‘And now, before you go,’ she smiled, ‘my father wishes to make some small gesture of our gratitude. Come!’

Later he would regret, much, that their tryst was so brief. Yet in that brief meeting she had again given him a certain peace, and strengthened his resolve on a course additional to priestly absolution (though she could not know it). And he was glad when she said that she would be remaining in Paris, for when he returned he could take up her invitation to visit at the Carmelite house in the city whence she was appointed.

That Afternoon

‘You appear to have made a most felicitous connection, Hervey. Grant tells me that Count Chantonnay has more influence with Louis Bourbon than Condé even,’ said Lord George Irvine as they sipped Madeira after a light luncheon of calf’s tongue followed by early strawberries brought from Provence. ‘Let me see that bauble again.’

Hervey handed him the velvet-covered case.

‘A fleur-de-lis within a laurel wreath — and those are without doubt the finest emeralds. And prettily fixed on that sky-blue ribbon, too. It should set off your levee dress handsomely!’

‘It is a family order, sir, approved of the Court by long custom, the count informed me. He was insistent that I should receive it.’

‘Of course, of course,’ smiled Lord George. ‘I am sure the prince regent will not be ill-disposed to the notion of a foreign decoration’s adorning one of his officers. Envious, perhaps, but not ill-disposed. And a touching reunion with your nun was had, I understand?’

Hervey would not be drawn. ‘She is a remarkable woman.’

‘And you will leave for England this night?’

‘Immediately after the service of memorial for Captain Jessope,’ he replied, at once heavy.

‘Jessope? Lord Fitzroy Somerset’s aide-de-camp? He is killed too? I did not know it. I wish in God’s name we might see a list soon. Lord Fitzroy himself is not long for this world, too, by all accounts. Jessope dead! I cannot say I knew him well — I met him but infrequently at White’s — but an engaging officer, though. And you knew him?’

‘Imperfectly,’ replied Hervey softly, hoping that Lord George would not dwell on it — which he did not.

‘Your captaincy, however,’ demanded his commanding officer peremptorily. ‘What are we to do?’

‘As I said, sir, it is wholly beyond my means; it would not do to delay selling any longer — Anson’s widow will need an annuity.’

‘Be that as it may, Hervey, I will not send the papers to Craig’s Court until we reach England. Have you no prospects, of any sort?’

‘None, I am afraid, sir!’

Lord George sighed pointedly. ‘Mr Hervey, let me speak plainly with you. Are you not to marry the ward of the Marquess of Bath?’

Whitehall, 27 July

The troopers of the Blues, standing mounted sentinel at the gates of the Horse Guards, brought their heavy-cavalry-pattern swords from the shoulder to the carry as Hervey got down from the carriage and walked between them, returning the salute with his right hand. He would have preferred the anonymity of plain clothes but he had thought it fit to wear undress instead so that he might gain entry to the Duke of York’s headquarters with more expedition. He touched his forage cap to the two dismounted sentries at the inner archway and entered the building through an unimposing door in the side-arch. Within, an orderly directed him up the stairs to the adjutant-general’s department where he was received (rather distantly, he thought) by a civilian clerk. ‘Please be seated Mr … ahm … Hartley. We shall attend you forthwith.’

Hervey sat on a bench comfortably upholstered in buttoned green leather and picked up the copy of The Times of that day which lay on an adjacent table. He turned to its inside pages and studied the consolidated list of officers who had died at, or since, the battle. He knew more names than he did not. He read reports by special correspondents on the movements of the Militia along the south coast, the condition of the forces in Canada, and the occupation in Paris. He read a summary of the parliamentary debates on flogging, and his bile rose on seeing the persuasion of so many as to its supposed efficacy. All news and opinion devoured, he then turned to the front page to amuse himself with the personal notices: ‘A SINGLE GENTLEMAN wishing to domesticate in a genteel private family…; A RESPECTABLE young person WANTS A SITUATION as BARMAID …’ (he had to read this a second time); ‘RESPECTABLE officer’s daughter wishes for a situation as a companion …’ (a fate he feared for Edmonds’s daughters). And when even these had exhausted his attention he looked at his watch — the same which Jessope had given him, restored by the skill of a Paris horologist — and enquired of the clerk why there should be such a delay in accepting a dispatch from Lord Combermere.

‘I beg your indulgence, Mr Harley, we have so much to be about in the wake of events on the Continent,’ the clerk replied.

He turned to the back-page sales: ‘A PAIR of handsome BROWN CHARIOT or CURRICLE GELDINGS, 15 hands 2 inches high …; THIRTY very clever, active, well bred, seasoned MACHINE HORSES, in high condition, mostly young …’

Up and down the columns he went, from ‘valuable collection of paintings’ to ‘singularly elegant gothic cottage’. They occupied him another half-hour, and still there was no activity in the clerk.

‘Now, see here,’ he began, putting down the paper noisily, ‘I have urgent regimental business to be about. Will you kindly present that dispatch to the adjutant-general now so that I may be released to attend to it.’