remained of Elizabeth’s prospects, for she was closer now to forty than to thirty. Indeed, if there had been a silver lining in the black cloud of Badajoz it was the resolve that had grown out of his incarceration to put all this side of his affairs in order, to assume a decent responsibility for his daughter. It was hardly unusual to place a motherless child in the care of a guardian, but Georgiana was Henrietta’s daughter: he dishonoured his late wife’s memory, and their former love, by putting away their daughter thus. And so it was that he began to fret for leave to be with them – and, indeed, for the opportunity to press his suit (if he could put it as decidedly as that) with Sir Ivo Lankester’s widow. He had met Lady Lankester but twice, first in Calcutta when she was in new mourning weeds, and then at dinner at Lord George Irvine’s, but he had concluded that she would make him an admirable wife, and more especially an admirable mother to Georgiana, for she had an infant of her own. He could only hope that their differences in station, though in certain respects truly not great, and disparity of age (she was ten years his junior, perhaps more), would not incline her to set her face irrevocably against the notion.
Another gun fired, and a horse from F Troop bolted the ends of the line – towards the guns rather than away. Hervey groaned as he saw the wretched dragoon lying back almost flat in the saddle, reins at full length, while the trooper charged through the Chestnuts’ limbers. Thank God they had been dismounted at the Duke of York’s funeral! He could never have been confident of their steadiness otherwise. It was no surprise that Strickland had been so determined to return to Hounslow that night of the smash, to be ready for first parade. Foot drill was a not altogether alien practice for cavalry but it required very strict attention, especially when mustered with the Foot Guards under the eye of so many senior officers – the Duke of Wellington included. To dismount a regiment of cavalry had been an extraordinary rebuke to the nation, however. Everyone said so. The duke had been at the Horse Guards a month, now, insistent on withdrawing the troops from Portugal as soon as may be, for the dispatch of a mere five thousand men to Lisbon was these days a heavy drain on the disposable force of the country. Indeed it had been the cause of delay in the Duke of York’s funeral arrangements: there had simply not been enough soldiers to bury a field marshal. Hervey could still barely credit it, for Waterloo had been but a dozen years before!
Strickland had not been the only casualty of the Duke of York’s funeral. Hervey had been taken aback by the severity of the cold that night; the ceremonies were greatly delayed on the day itself, and the service had not finally got underway in St George’s chapel until evening, by which time several dragoons had succumbed. They at least had been revived by the guardhouse braziers; several of the mourners, it was held, did not survive the week. The Duke of Wellington (so Lord John Howard, Hervey’s ‘friend at court’, said) had been indisposed by the freezing air, and had not been able to attend the Horse Guards until two days following, so that there had been much industry in those first weeks, for the duke insisted always on the work of the day being done in the day. The accumulated work of several months could not be so quickly disposed of, however; not least the promotion lists which mounted by the day on the Military Secretary’s desk. Hervey shook his head. It was the very devil of a business, for his stock stood never so low. The affair in Portugal had seen to that. And he needed his stock to be high, for he had lately applied for his majority. It was ironic that for so many years, when he had not had the means to purchase, the business of promotion had been merely actuarial, to be transacted between the regimental agents without reference to any other,
Another gun fired, and a horse from F Troop bolted the ends of the line – towards the guns rather than away. Hervey groaned as he saw the wretched dragoon lying back almost flat in the saddle, reins at full length, while the trooper charged through the Chestnuts’ limbers. Thank God they had been dismounted at the Duke of York’s funeral! He could never have been confident of their steadiness otherwise. It was no surprise that Strickland had been so determined to return to Hounslow that night of the smash, to be ready for first parade. Foot drill was a not altogether alien practice for cavalry but it required very strict attention, especially when mustered with the Foot Guards under the eye of so many senior officers – the Duke of Wellington included. To dismount a regiment of cavalry had been an extraordinary rebuke to the nation, however. Everyone said so. The duke had been at the Horse Guards a month, now, insistent on withdrawing the troops from Portugal as soon as may be, for the dispatch of a mere five thousand men to Lisbon was these days a heavy drain on the disposable force of the country. Indeed it had been the cause of delay in the Duke of York’s funeral arrangements: there had simply not been enough soldiers to bury a field marshal. Hervey could still barely credit it, for Waterloo had been but a dozen years before!
Strickland had not been the only casualty of the Duke of York’s funeral. Hervey had been taken aback by the severity of the cold that night; the ceremonies were greatly delayed on the day itself, and the service had not finally got underway in St George’s chapel until evening, by which time several dragoons had succumbed. They at least had been revived by the guardhouse braziers; several of the mourners, it was held, did not survive the week. The Duke of Wellington (so Lord John Howard, Hervey’s ‘friend at court’, said) had been indisposed by the freezing air, and had not been able to attend the Horse Guards until two days following, so that there had been much industry in those first weeks, for the duke insisted always on the work of the day being done in the day. The accumulated work of several months could not be so quickly disposed of, however; not least the promotion lists which mounted by the day on the Military Secretary’s desk. Hervey shook his head. It was the very devil of a business, for his stock stood never so low. The affair in Portugal had seen to that. And he needed his stock to be high, for he had lately applied for his majority. It was ironic that for so many years, when he had not had the means to purchase, the business of promotion had been merely actuarial, to be transacted between the regimental agents without reference to any other,