‘Commanding officer!’ shouted Corporal Denny from the leader of the regimental chariot, not allowing the horses to halt and thereby acknowledge that the commanding officer of the 6th Light Dragoons, even an acting one, could be impeded at his own gates.
The sentry scuttled through the postern like a rat started by a terrier. Seconds later the big iron-clad doors swung open, dragoons heaving with all their strength.
‘Details, atte-e-enshun!’ bellowed the corporal for the inlying picket (the detailed men were not actually designated ‘picket’ until the picket officer had finished his inspection).
With scarcely checked speed, the chariot rolled through the gateway arch. Hervey acknowledged the salutes, the gate sentry with his carbine at the ‘present’, the picket officer, a mint-new cornet from his own squadron, and the orderly serjeant-major saluting with the hand, and the rest standing rigidly to attention.
Corporal Denny reined up outside regimental headquarters. The orderly dragoon, who had doubled from the guardhouse, pulled down the chariot’s folding step, and opened the door. It had been six days since Hervey had left for Horningsham (the bout of remittent fever had detained him two days longer than he had intended) and he wanted to see District Orders and the adjutant’s occurrence book before appearing at mess.
There was no one in the orderly room, but in his office were several letters. Three were in hands he recognized: Lord George Irvine’s, Kat’s, and that of his old friend Captain (sometime Commodore) Sir Laughton Peto. He hesitated before opening his colonel’s, for likely it contained the reply to his express asking leave to purchase the lieutenant-colonelcy. Not that he entertained the slightest doubt as to Lord George’s support. Nevertheless he laid it aside for the moment to deal instead with the four unrecognized hands. These, however, turned out to be matters of no great account, which could wait for the morning. Next he opened Kat’s. Before he had left for Wiltshire he had sent her a brief note saying he would be gone some days, but expected to return within the week.
Holland-park
13th March
My dearest Matthew,I too am sorry at your news and trust that you will have a speedy and a happy return. As I told you these two nights past, I go to my sister’s in Hertfordshire today until Sunday next, and beg that you will join me there for as long as may be, for I believe I shall soon thereafter go to Athleague and there stay a full month until the work here at Holland-park is done. Pray let me know immediately you return when it shall be.Your ever loving,Kat.
Hervey felt a moment’s unease at the intimacy of the endearment, though he had seen it on the page often enough (and, heaven knew right well, elsewhere too). Kat would expect him to drive this very evening to Holland Park, but that was out of the question. He must show himself at mess, and there was a field day tomorrow. And besides, was he not resolved on … regularizing his life?
He laid the letter aside and opened that from Peto, which he saw had been delivered in the day’s London post.
The United Service Club
18th March
My Dear Hervey,I am attending at the Admiralty this week, and expect to travel thence to Norfolk. Would you be so good as to dine with me tomorrow evening?Ever Yr good friend,Laughton Peto.
Hervey was much cheered by the revelation that his old friend was ashore and close at hand, and by the prospect of seeing him again so soon. He would reply first thing in the morning.
He picked up Lord George Irvine’s letter again. It could not, of course, contain the positive information that the command was his, but he was confident that no matter what the Horse Guards’ new regulations said, in practice all that was required was for the colonel of a regiment to make his wish known to the commander-in-chief, and the appointment was then but a formality. Yet he baulked at breaking the seal nevertheless. There was duty to attend to first – District Orders and the occurrence book; he could not simply pick the cherry from the cake. In any case, and despite all reason, he still felt uncertain. He laid down the letter once more and turned open the file of orders.
In ten minutes he learned that nothing had materially altered in the London District during his absence, and that nothing was likely to do so – no notice of reviews, general officer’s field days, levees nor the like. He looked at the copy of The London Gazette enclosed with the orders, noting its appointments – in particular that the King had been pleased to appoint his brother the Duke of Clarence to be High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, ‘and of the Dominions, islands, Territories thereunto belonging’ – and wondering what, if any, consequence there would be for his friend Peto. He turned the page and glanced through the honours: there were to be three new barons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: ‘Sir John Singleton Copley, Knight, the name, stile and title of Baron Lyndhurst … the right Honourable Sir Charles Abbott, Knt, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, the name, stile and title of Baron Tenterden … the Right Honourable William Conyngham Plunket, the name, stile and title of Baron Plunket, of Newtown, in the county of Cork’. There were several knights, and several more knights-commander of the various orders. And ‘to be Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, Eyre Somervile Esq., C.B.’!
Hervey smiled broadly. He knew Eyre Somervile to be worthy of any honour, but why so singular an order of knighthood puzzled him.
He read on: a report on the royal assent to several Acts of Parliament – ‘An Act to amend and enlarge the powers and provisions of an Act, relating to the Heckbridge and Wentbridge Railway’; ‘An Act for providing a further maintenance for the Rector of the parish of St John, Horslydown, within the town and borough of Southwark, in the county of Surrey’; ‘An Act to enable the Birmingham Coal company to sue and be sued in the name of their Secretary, or one of the members of the said company’, various Acts for more effectually repairing and maintaining roads in the Midland counties and Lancashire, various Acts relating to financial instruments (he shook his head: these were tedious details to detain him); and finally ‘An Act for fixing, until the twenty-fifth day of March one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, the rates of subsistence to be paid to innkeepers and others on quartering soldiers’.
Hervey nodded at that. He considered himself more than a little fortunate to be in temporary command of a regiment quartered in barracks, for the vexations of billeting were many and unavoidable. Not least of these were the difficulties in maintaining a proper regime of feeding the troop horses, while in barracks the adjutant, the riding-master and the veterinary surgeon could cast their eyes over the entire regiment’s stables in a quarter of an hour, and as a consequence every man was a better horsemaster.
But that was all behind them. He laid down the orders and took up the adjutant’s occurrence book. He read it quickly, for it contained no more than the usual number of defaulters, routine comings and goings, receipts and issues, reports and returns. Then under the heading ‘Veterinary’ he saw ‘three horses from A Trp confined in isolation, symptoms of the farcy’.