Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) (24 page)

And that much Hervey found unanswerable, suffused as it was with both humanity and his own experience. The chaise had slowed to a walk on coming into Windsor, as if the gravity of the matters under discussion required it, and he was glad of the change of speed, which seemed to give him leave to consider the matter more fully, but the horses were now bending to the sharp incline of Castle Hill in a trot once more, which belied their twelve-mile approach march. Horseshoes rang on the cobblestones where the guardsmen had cleared the latest snowfall.

‘Thank you for your candour, St Alban,’ said Hervey at length, with (to his own ear at least) a faint note of surprise. ‘You have given me much to ponder – and indeed to argue this evening if I’m bearded by “Ultras”,’ he added wryly.

As they turned onto the bridge over the old moat the pair came back to a walk for King Henry’s Gate, where the sentries presented arms and a colour-serjeant saluted extravagantly – a considerably more auspicious entry than his last, said Hervey to himself, and wondering if he would find the King in any better state of mind.

An avenue of Grenadiers at the ‘present’ lined their way up the bailey, past the lower ward lit uncommonly brightly by gas, where carriages were already parked, past St George’s Chapel, and the motte, and Great Round tower, on through the Norman Gate and into the upper ward, where at last the chaise drew up before the canopied entrance of the state apartments.

Hervey got down briskly, took off his cloak, hitched up his sword, acknowledged the salutes of more Grenadiers and footmen, and marched into St George’s Hall with as much self-possession as he judged reasonable. He had no doubt that a lieutenant-colonel of light dragoons would be of little consequence to many – perhaps even all – of the assembled grandees of the court and the men of moment in parliament, but he had no intention of submitting to their opinion. How many were to be at the levee he had no idea – he supposed several hundred, for the castle was a vast place, by all accounts – but he had at least the assurance that in St Alban he would have diverting company if no other were forthcoming.

There was an orchestra playing at the top of the grand staircase – Grenadiers again, with some strings. Even to Hervey’s ear it was pleasing.

‘I did not ask: do you know the castle?’

‘I have not been here since I was a page, Colonel,’ replied St Alban, gazing up in some awe at the soaring vaulting. ‘It’s vastly changed, I think. The King has done much with it, and of late too.’

Hervey abandoned his somewhat forced insouciance to gaze at the decorator’s art – the suits of armour, swords, shields, pikes, halberds, and the lifelike equestrians at the top of the stairs.

‘Those suits are uncommonly small, are they not? Or a miniature, do you suppose?’

‘That I do remember, Colonel. They were made for Prince Henry when he was a youth, the Prince of Wales, soon after James the first ascended the throne. One, I recall, was a present of the French king. We pages were allowed to try them.’

Hervey stood in appreciation before them for some time. ‘How history might have been different had their prince lived to fill a man’s suit.’ Better, though he did not say, than with his brother, Charles.

‘Indeed, Colonel. “He is dead who while he lived was a perpetual Paradise; every season that he showed himself in a perpetual spring, every exercise wherein he was seen a special felicity …”’

Hervey nodded. ‘Well spoken. My father used that sermon on two occasions that I know of, and when I asked him whence the words came he told me from the King’s chaplain, but that he had taken them from Donne, so that he himself had no compunction in appropriating them in turn.’

‘We pages were made to recite them before putting on the armour. I don’t recall why. I suppose a mark of worthiness, perhaps.’

Hervey looked at him with approval. He was glad, now, to have come here, for he’d not expected to be. ‘We had better proceed.’

Footmen bowed and held out hands to usher them towards the place of the audience, but Hervey was perplexed that the guests seemed so few in this stately progress, for it was his experience always to queue – though he supposed the castle was so great as to make the largest of assemblies seem small. He was certain that they arrived in good time.

The guiding hands led them to the Grand Reception Room, a Rococo confection of gold leaf, looking glass and tapestries, where another orchestra played, and the earliest arrivals made their introductions and glanced uneasily (some at least) at their reflections. Hervey took in the room with as little movement of his head as he could manage, and then turned to his aide-de-camp. ‘Is there anyone of your acquaintance?’

Cornet St Alban looked about the room, his brow furrowing slightly. ‘None that I can see, Colonel. Those with their backs to us I can’t vouch for. I recognize the Marquess of Framlingham, but I’m not acquainted with him. His interest, I understand, is entirely with cattle improvement.’

Hervey smiled. ‘And that is his marchioness, I take it – with the feathers to outdo an hussar?’

St Alban smiled too. ‘I can’t rightly say, Colonel. The feathers are magnificent, though.’

Hervey felt no great inclination to present himself to anyone. Nor could he see any uniforms, to which he might have been obliged to do so.

‘Ah, but I see over there, now that he’s turned, is Rowly Fane,’ said St Alban happily. ‘He was page here, too.’

‘Not a son of General Harry’s, I suppose?’

‘Yes, indeed – his youngest. He came up to Oxford in my year. I wonder what he does here?’

‘Well, in due course you must discover.’

After ten minutes or so of more intense scrutiny, the room began to fill steadily. The King had commanded their presence at seven, which by custom allowed half an hour more, whereupon he would make his appearance, take a turn about the assemblage, nod here and there, stop to talk to no one, then retire to a low dais and receive those singled out by his gentlemen-ushers, leaving the room half an hour later to dine in semi-state with a further chosen few, while the rest were shown to a buffet of legendary indulgence. So said the equerries.

‘Hervey!’

He looked round. ‘Upon my word, Howard!’

‘I saw your name on the list just this evening. You didn’t say on Friday that you were to be here.’

‘That’s because it was only on Saturday that I was commanded to be here. And you? This is all part of your duty, I suppose.’

‘I was made an additional usher last year.’

‘Of course. This is Cornet St Alban.’

St Alban bowed.

Lord John Howard returned the compliment. ‘The Earl of Bicester’s son?’

‘I am, sir.’

Howard smiled. ‘Your father writes the best letters of any lord lieutenant. Lord Hill circulates them at the Horse Guards, with “Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest”.’

Hervey allowed them a word or two more before pressing Howard on another matter, knowing that his old friend would soon have to excuse himself to his ushering duties. ‘I’m summoned to the Horse Guards on Thursday and I’m damned if I can discover the why. I’d thought of asking you on Friday but you were called away before I had opportunity.’

Howard glanced at St Alban, who bowed and retired out of hearing.

‘So confidential?’ asked Hervey.

‘So confidential that I myself know little but that it concerns precautionary measures in the event of further civil violence. Lord Hill himself is to speak.’

‘“The secret things belong unto the Lord”?’

Howard frowned. ‘Quite. And for what purpose I don’t know, but ten lieutenant-colonels of cavalry in all have been summoned.’

‘
Ten
colonels: I hadn’t supposed there were so many on the home list.’

‘I think some may be from the half-pay, but you might therefore conclude that it is a business of some moment. “Those things which are revealed belong unto us, that we may do all the words of this law” – as you’re evidently of a Scriptural mind this evening.’

Hervey inclined his head.

‘By the bye, your friend, Fairbrother – I understand he’s to be offered a rather handsome bounty for the information he provided to the Master-General. I saw a letter this morning with a testimonial from the Royal Society. They wish to meet with him.’

‘That I’m very glad of. He is not without means, but he is somewhat without purpose at present.’

Howard nodded. ‘But not a word till the eggs are in the pudding … But see, I must go and attend on Sir Henry Hardinge,’ he said, indicating the little knot of beaux in the middle of the room.

Hervey saw – and approved. ‘What a man is Hardinge. There was never a brigadier greater admired in the Peninsula.’

Henry Hardinge was but a few years his senior, but had commanded a brigade of Portuguese, and was at Ligny with the Prussians, where he lost the better part of an arm. The duke had made him Secretary at War eighteen months ago when Lord Palmerston resigned.

‘He’s at his desk by eight of a morning, by all accounts, and there still when the hour-hand touches it again.’

‘The smaller the army, the greater the work.’

‘I suppose it is so … but you’ll forgive me, Hervey – until next week?’

They bowed, and Lord John Howard took his leave.

Cornet St Alban rejoined him. ‘The King has just come in the room, Colonel.’

The band ceased its merry airs and struck up
God Save the King
. Hervey strained for a glimpse of the royal progress without giving that impression. ‘It cannot be but a trial for him – he has such an embarrassment of breathing, and his legs so terribly swollen. I wonder he puts himself to the ordeal.’

‘The equerries say he’s dosed heavily, but he will insist on it.’

Footmen in the finest livery he’d seen preceded the sad figure – the tallest too, and ramrod-straight, giving the occasion all the majesty that the poor old, dropsied King might otherwise have been unable to conjure.

There was no seeing him for the cloud of attendants and those paying court, so instead Hervey observed the onlookers in the outer circles of the room. They appeared rather disconsolate, if respectfully attentive to the unseen progress. Although he had never sought such company, nor even wanted to be here this evening, he found himself wishing he had seen a levee in the days of the King’s pomp.

Ten, perhaps fifteen minutes, and the procession had reached the dais. The band returned to its merry airs, and conversations were once again taken up. Hervey acknowledged the bows of several who supposed they might be acquainted, and spoke with two officers of the Coldstream who were lately returned from Portugal, until at length a gentleman-usher came up.

‘Colonel Hervey?’

‘Yes?’

‘Lascelles, Colonel. His Majesty commands your attention.’

Hervey bowed to the Coldstreamers and took the usher’s lead to the dais.

The King was speaking to a prince of the church, and then an ambassador, during which time Hervey could observe him keenly. He was most exquisitely got up, but his sad bulk, clothed in so much blue satin, gave him the appearance of an eiderdown, his bloated legs, so finely stockinged, and his feet so elegantly shod, hanging like those of a marionette whose strings had been loosed. And yet he seemed to be listening intently and speaking with awareness – and with none of the excitability of the time before.

When the ambassador withdrew, the usher took a step forward. ‘Colonel Hervey, Your Majesty.’

The King nodded, and Hervey approached.

‘Your Majesty,’ he said quietly, bowing.

‘Matthew,’ began the King; ‘it is so very good you are come.’

Hervey was taken aback on hearing his name. ‘Sire.’

There was a moment or two in which the King said nothing, seeming to struggle for breath a little. Then he smiled ever so slightly, almost resignedly. ‘So very good of you. I was most grateful for your letter. I might have been there, with you – would have, you know, were it not for … It is so damnably ill for men to do as they did – burn barns, offer violence. And you, your dragoons, apprehending them – admirable, admirable. You shall have some recognition.’

‘Sire, I did my duty, as any man. I merit no recognition.’

‘You will be so good as to allow me to be the judge of that.’

The regal rebuke was nicely done. ‘Sire.’

The King shook his head slowly. ‘I am grievously saddened that my subjects think so ill of their sovereign as to scorn him in his own park.’

This was not the occasion to discourse on the condition of England, troubled or otherwise. Besides, Hervey felt compassion – a surprisingly profound compassion – for this unhappy ruler, who knew, surely, his time of judgement was near (and not merely in the reckoning of his subjects). He put the carriage priming aside, though not quite completely. ‘It is infamous, sire, no matter from what grievances the action springs.’

‘You think their grievances just, do you?’

Hervey felt emboldened enough to speak what might be thought only obvious. ‘England is indeed a blessèd plot, sire, but a
demi-
paradise only.’

The King seemed to smile. ‘You have wit, Matthew. It is most apt.’

‘Sire.’

‘But you do your duty unflinchingly, and are in no doubt what is that duty.’

‘As all my dragoons, sire.’

The King seemed to smile again. ‘I wish … I wish you had come earlier to court – before …’ He held out a hand as if to indicate a body that was not his own. ‘Ichabod, Matthew: the glory has departed.’

‘Your Majesty’s enemies have much detained me abroad, sire.’

The King appeared to chuckle. ‘Well, well, it is all for the best, I suppose. You will come again?’

Hervey was surprised at the note of request. ‘Sire, I am at your command.’

‘Well, well.’ The King turned to his chamberlain. ‘I shall retire now to dine.’

Hervey stepped back.

‘Good night, Matthew.’

‘Good night, Your Majesty.’

He bowed, very formally, as the King rose unsteadily and began his withdrawal.

Cornet St Alban returned to his side. ‘Colonel, Sir Henry Hardinge asks to see you.’

Hervey nodded absently, his mind still with the King. ‘He wore the look of death, St Alban.’