Man Of War

One of those obligations, he knew full well, ought wholly to be his own, and the other – their parents – he rightly shared with Elizabeth, though in absentia. Was she trying to wrong-foot him by such a remark? He would not be shaken, however. He cleared his throat determinedly, and moved to the edge of his chair. ‘So you refuse to give up this scheme?’

‘Scheme, Matthew?’

‘Your . . . renouncing Peto, and taking instead this . . . German. You refuse to change your course?’

‘Who asks me to?’

Hervey was astonished. ‘I cannot believe I am speaking to my own sister!’

‘And I cannot believe it too!’

Hervey stood up. ‘You give a man your word to marry him, and then renounce him to take another: is that right conduct? Is that what people would consider right conduct?’

Elizabeth rose, and threw up her chin. ‘Do not you judge me, Matthew! Do not you presume that because I have lived quietly all my life – ay, and obligingly – that I have no feeling!’

Hervey’s mouth fell open in utter incomprehension. Then his voice began to rise. ‘I might understand it – though heaven knows how – if you were simply to say that you did not wish any longer to marry Peto. But to take up with another while still promised—’

‘I have written to Captain Peto . . .’ There was just a note of imploring.

‘Written? Written? ’

‘Matthew, it is our only means of communication. His proposal to me was in writing, and my acceptance too.’

‘It is not decent, Elizabeth. You cannot marry this man!’

Elizabeth stiffened. ‘Ah, for the sake of appearance you would have me die an old maid!’

‘I can’t believe what I hear!’

She breathed deeply, her face red with anger and dismay. ‘Well, Matthew, I may tell you that I am incapable of obliging you in that regard any longer.’

‘What do you mean?’

She held his stare, though with the greatest difficulty. ‘I have lain with Major Heinrici!’

Hervey looked as if he would explode. ‘Good God!’

Elizabeth’s jaw now positively jutted. ‘How dare you, Matthew! How dare you condemn me when you do as you do!’

Hervey’s face returned to incomprehension. ‘What do you mean, “do as I do”?’

‘Hah! You think me so provincial that I do not know what takes place between you and Lady Katherine Greville? And she a married woman, Matthew – a married woman! Do you want to debate the degree to which we both individually break the seventh commandment?’

Hervey reeled. ‘This is unsupportable! I cannot believe what I hear. We can have no more to say to each other. Goodbye, Elizabeth!’ And he turned and stalked from the room as if he would knock down the first man who ill-crossed his path.

He ate no lunch. He walked instead for mile upon mile, at turns angry and despairing, yet not knowing precisely what was the true root of the anger, nor of the despair, which did not help his recovering the composure he considered necessary for returning to the United Service Club. Until at about six o’clock, in St James’s Park, a Guards band playing gentle Irish tunes he recalled from the Peninsula began to calm his savage breast.

He sat on a bench listening, observing two ducks from the lake making affectionate display, until he started wondering at his own judgement, which he knew, in his wholly rational moments, to be distorted still by the image of Henrietta and that short but perfect consummation of all his childhood longing (and that of his cornet years – the uncomplicated time, the honest years). He was doing his very best, was he not, to recover the simplicity of those years? And was he not merely, and rightly, alarmed for Elizabeth’s sake, anxious that she too did not fall into the sort of maze in which he had stumbled for so long?

He rose, replaced his hat, dusted off his coat, and, suppressing a sigh that might have been deep enough to make the ducks give flight, strode peaceably at last towards the Horse Guards Parade, and thence to the United Service.

There he found Fairbrother in the coffee room, looking more uneasy than ever he had seen him. ‘My dear fellow, are you quite well?’

Fairbrother, holding a large measure of whiskey and soda, which looked as if it might already have been replenished at least once, shook his head, as if doubting his ability to give an answer.

‘I am sorry I was not returned at our usual hour,’ continued Hervey. ‘I imagined, though, that your interview with Mr Wilberforce might become an extended affair.’

His friend nodded, and then shook his head again, seeming to correct himself. ‘No, it was of no very great length.’

‘What is the matter?’ Hervey sat down opposite him and nodded to the steward.

Fairbrother scratched his forehead. ‘How was your sister?’

Hervey looked away and cleared his throat. ‘I think the least said the better on that account.’

‘Why? What transpired between the two of you?’ Fairbrother was now sitting upright.

Hervey was first inclined to think it was no business of his friend’s, but . . . ‘She is adamant she will not marry Peto, and that she will marry instead this German.’