Johnson laid down the bellows. ‘Why don’t tha let me do that, sir. Sit down and ’ave thi coffee while it’s ’ot.’
Hervey sighed. He had no need of the button-stick anyway, except to occupy his mind. He sat in the armchair by the smoking fire and poured out some of the thick black brew which Johnson had perfected over many years of improvisation with the most unpromising of raw materials, and then picked up the letter again. ‘I must tell you frankly, Johnson: the Duke of York is greatly angered. Lord John Howard tells me all in this, here.’
Johnson took up the poker again, and scowled. ‘Ay. But t’Duke’d never ’ave known if Colonel Norris ’adn’t told ’im.’
‘Except that the Spanish ambassador has probably also protested.’
Johnson stopped poking the fire, and turned with a look of uncharacteristic anxiety. ‘Sir, tha doesn’t think tha’ll be—’
‘What?’
‘Well, I don’t know rightly – whatever it is as ’appens to an officer.’
‘Cashiered?’
‘Ay, sir.’
‘Quite possibly. I imagine the Horse Guards would not go to the trouble of ordering a general court martial otherwise.’
‘An’ tha’s not worried?’
Hervey half laughed. ‘Johnson, in truth I’m so dismayed by how we seem to arrange things in the army that I hardly care what happens. I believe I may say that I would not do the same again, for I see all too clearly how things have become, but in all honesty I cannot regret what I did, for it was all I had learned in these eighteen years a soldier.’
‘Ay, well said, Major ’Ervey. An’ Gen’ral Clinton says ’e’ll speak for thee, doesn’t ’e?’
‘Oh yes, have no fear, Johnson. There’ll be testimonials enough. But if the Duke of York is as angered as Lord John says he is, it will be to no avail. He’s an old man, and a sick one too. His opinions are more decided by the day, and they are not favourable to junior officers who take things upon themselves, especially in the face of their seniors.’
‘All this is because of Colonel Norris.’
‘All this is because of me, Johnson. I cannot escape the responsibility.’
Johnson stood up and looked at the fire despairingly: no wood he could find in this place gave off any heat. ‘Very Christian that is, Major ’Ervey. Some consolation to thee, I suppose.’
Hervey scowled back.
‘An’ why ’asn’t tha been to see Mrs Delgado an’ ’er father?’
‘What has that to do with it? I told you anyway: I have been, and shall go again as soon as I am able. You forget, perhaps, I am in open arrest.’
‘Colonel Laming’s been to see ’er.’
‘I am glad to hear it. But I cannot call on her and her father before Colonel Norris gives me leave.’
‘Tha knows they might go to England? On account o’ t’trouble ’ere.’
Hervey looked surprised. ‘No, I did not. How did you come by this?’
‘Colonel Laming’s man.’
Hervey’s eyes widened. ‘I compliment you on your sources, I’m sure!’
‘Ay, ’e ’eard they’d be gooin’ by t’end o’t’month.’
‘Well, I have not seen Colonel Laming these last few days, I regret to say.’ Hervey sounded especially thoughtful. ‘He has important duties with General Clinton. He says he will come by tonight, all being well.’
But what came instead that night was a letter:
Head Quarters,
Valle de Pereira Barracks
8th January 1827My dear Hervey,I am prevented by only the most urgent duty from calling on you this evening, for there are matters with which I would acquaint you in person, and so I am obliged to depose these matters here instead, and would beg your indulgence, confident that you of all men will know the urgent delicacy of what we are about. You will be pleased to learn, for every good reason, that Sir William Clinton is inclined to base his dispositions in the very largest measure upon your design, for he has learned from M. Saldanha the Minister of War that the Miguelites will next renew their offensive in Minho and Tras os Montes, but that M. Saldanha is confident of the Portuguese army so long as there are English troops not too distant who would thereby demonstrate to the Miguelites that whatever success they might enjoy in the provinces it would never take them to Lisbon. Half our army is therefore to march forthwith to the Mondego, and shall have its Head Quarters at Coimbra. The remainder shall occupy the Tagus forts with a view to securing the peace of the capital and to be in a position to reinforce the garrison at Elvas if that front should become active. The Spanish announce that they are to form an army of observation of fifteen thousand men in Estremadura, this to guard against advance from Portugal, which notion is of course entirely without justification, and it is the opinion of M. Saldanha that the true purpose is to check the Miguelites, which they protest they are now certain to do. In any case, there is to be no occupying the lines of Torres Vedras, save for a very few forts. Instead if the division on the Mondego is obliged to withdraw, or withdraws to shorten its lines of communication in the event of the Regent’s forces driving the Miguelites from Minho and Tras os Montes, it will occupy a line from Leiria to Santarem, much as you proposed, with an advance guard at Thomar. In almost every detail, therefore, Sir William has adopted your design, and he asks me to assure you that he is most conscious of it. I do believe this will mean an end to your animadversion, for he is sure to write in these terms to the Horse Guards.The second matter on which I write is one of some delicacy too, although a different kind. I have resolved to end my state of bachelorhood, and if Isabella Delgado returns a favourable reply to my offer of marriage then it will be ended sooner instead of later. I confess to you – and here, perhaps, I am able to confess more than I might were we to speak together – I confess that I have formed a most ardent affection for her. She is, without doubt, the most admirable woman of my entire acquaintance, and I pray that she will judge my circumstances to be to her favour. I go tomorrow to Belem, and you will wish me every good wish, for you, I know, hold her in the highest regard also. My one regret is that I did not press my suit all those years ago when first we made the acquaintance of the baron, but then circumstances were hardly to my favour, whereas now a colonel instead of a cornet asks his daughter’s hand . . .
Hervey laid down the letter, his hand trembling. Favourable circumstances indeed! Lieutenant-colonel, with a colonel’s brevet – and more promotion to come, no doubt. What would Isabella’s reply be? What should it be, for her daughter had no father, and she no husband?
He sat down heavily in an armchair. What did he offer? Captain, a major’s brevet, and the prospect of a court martial that might end in cashiering. He did not even have the right to propose, let alone contest so favourable an offer as Laming’s – his friend of nigh on twenty years, the man who had risked everything to rescue him from Badajoz, and who even now was working for his deliverance from an injustice. It would be the basest thing, would it not?
Despite Johnson’s coaxing, Hervey lapsed into a long silence. In his resolution to put his affairs in order, and to ‘lead a new life’, he had allowed himself to imagine that Isabella Delgado might somehow play a part in it. Indeed, in the hours before his release he had begun to imagine her playing a very decided part. She would be mother to his daughter (she was loving and well practised in motherhood already); she would be an agreeable companion in every way (and, he imagined, a zealous lover); and she would be his strength through the public degradation that would follow from the Horse Guards’ discipline.