Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) Read Free

a point. He’d seen the quality close all right in his time, but they weren’t all the same. He felt sorry for Colonel Hervey. He hadn’t seen his wife in more than six months, and now she didn’t want to come to Hounslow – just when he needed somebody to be in charge now that he was the commanding officer. It didn’t seem right. Colonel Hervey said there were social obligations that kept Mrs Hervey in Hertfordshire, and that it was his fault for coming back so unexpected from Roumelia – or wherever it was they’d just been. But it didn’t seem right all the same. He’d seen the look on Colonel Hervey’s face when he’d got the letter back express: he thought as though the colonel’d lay everything aside and go at once to Hertfordshire, wherever that was – nought but a day’s journey, perhaps just half a day – and tell Mrs Hervey that she had to come to Hounslow; but he didn’t. He just said he needed a while to recollect things, and then later he sent word by express to Hounslow, and then word had come back express towards the end of next morning.
    ‘And tha knows, Wilkesie, Colonel ’Ervey said “good man” when ’e read it—’
    ‘Read what?’
    Johnson remembered that he’d not explained but merely thought it (the hour was late, and there’d been several more unexpired portions than usual). ‘T’letter, from t’adjutant, Mr Malet – ’e’s a good man, Mr Malet – so good they’ve made ’im a lord – well, ’e’d arranged a billet for us. Well, ’e didn’t exactly say “billet”; ’e said “appropriate quarters”. And then, I suppose, once Mrs ’Ervey’s finished doing ’er social obligations in ’Ertfordshire, Colonel ’Ervey’ll take the ’ouse that Lord ’Olderness’d ’ad, and she’ll be t’colonel’s lady – as’s only proper.’
    He liked the idea they were going to be staying at an inn, though; and a right good one at that – the Berkeley Arms near the heath and Cranford Park. It wasn’t a post-house, so it’d be nice and quiet, and …
    ‘We are ready, Corporal. Would you inform the colonel, if you please.’
    Johnson woke, for an instant taken aback, for an officer he’d never before seen had just ‘if-you-pleased’ him, while the serjeant in charge of the fourgon was keeping his distance, as if he’d no right to speak.
    He braced himself. ‘I will, sir. Your name, sir, please?’
    ‘St Alban.’
    Johnson generally supposed that when an officer’s name was that of a county of England, or one of its great places (and he knew about St Albans because that was where Mrs Hervey’s people lived near – and Alban was just Albans without an ‘s’), the title ‘Lord’ was its likely prefix; and not wanting to let down the new lieutenant-colonel by any show of callowness in his groom (or deficiency occasioned by his orphaned upbringing in distant Yorkshire), replied, ‘Thank you, Cornet St Alban, m’lord.’
    Cornet St Alban made no reply (there would be time – and more appropriate opportunity – to correct the mistake), which to Johnson signalled that his surmise had been correct. With much satisfaction, therefore, Johnson turned to the porters to thank them for their exertions – not least to the bleary-eyed Wilkes, who had stayed long in the buttery after the new lance-corporal of dragoons had quit the celebratory ‘ullage’ and retired to his cot in the attics – and went to find the smoking-room waiter to relay the noble cornet’s message to the Sixth’s new commanding officer.
    A few minutes later Hervey came into the hall booted and spurred, immaculate and assured in undress pelisse coat (a little shorter than its former prevalent length), with, in his hand, the peaked Prussian-style forage cap he had acquired in the Levant.
    Cornet St Alban made the customary bow. ‘Good morning, Colonel.’
    Hervey was momentarily, if only
very
momentarily, put off his stride. He had known perfectly well that the honour ‘Colonel’ must