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Lawford’s Duty
A Passage to India: Memories, Impressions, Reflexions.
Lawford’s Duty. Copyright © 2026 by A Lady
Sable Crow who supports our fanfiction with her website SharpeTales.net.
And
Bernard Cornwell who brought Richard Sharpe into our world.
The Present: Advancing upon Seringapatam – Spring 1799.
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PARAGRAPH ONE
Although earlier that evening William had indeed been sitting outside his tent in the dark (ostensibly reading from a volume of Coleridge by the light of the lamp within, mediated through the worn and grubby canvas of his inherited home-from-home whilst surreptitiously observing the doings of Tom, Dick, Harry and their circle, and trying not to laugh aloud at the ribaldry which he could quite plainly hear going on amongst them) by the time that Hakeswill and Morris had been having their conversation he had withdrawn into his comfortable, comforting small private sanctum, which had once again been carefully erected and furnished for him by the good Anil that afternoon (for they had been going to camp for three nights, he had heard). For some time now William had been engaged in playing the clavichord - Haydn’s piano sonata No. 43 in A-flat major, as it happened, or as much of it as had been possible, given the limitations of the archaic instrument. Eventually he reached a passage which entirely exceeded its scope and capacity, so he brought the movement to a decorous close with a short rallentando and a deftly-improvised but modest cadenza, then took up his book once more and went back outside again to sit apart and surreptitiously watch Sharpe and his friendship group as they talked and laughed around their fire, fifteen, perhaps twenty yards away from where he lurked, unobserved by them (so he fondly thought, anyway) in the darkness. This was largely how he spent his evenings now, after putting in a dutiful (and as brief as possible) appearance in the large tent which served as the officers’ mess - on the occasions when it was erected - to enjoy or at least endure a meal prepared and served in something like civilised surroundings, with the familiar trappings of dinner at home – silver, crystal, starched linen – reassuringly familiar, he imagined, to most of his fellow-officers - but it only put him in mind of years of soul-crushingly dreary dinners at Durford, and the Viscount, and Charles.
It was not long before William, true to form, once again began to feel uneasy about his habit of spying on the rankers. He did not like that word: he preferred ‘observing’ - but he was uncomfortably aware that if they had caught him at it they would no doubt inevitably have thought him to be spying on them in order to pass information to Morris in an effort to gain favour, as Ensign Hicks had been known to do.
It having occurred to him belatedly that his furtive behaviour was ignoble and beneath him, William then tried to get into the way of walking about the camp at night instead, to see what might be going on elsewhere, but chiefly to try to break what he had begun to fear was becoming an obsession with Sharpe. Of course, it was not long before he was, in imagination, King Henry V before Agincourt (at least, according to Shakespeare’s version of history). He fancied that he might get to know more of the men better by doing so, and that was surely healthier than focusing his interest on the members of the small group centred upon Private Sharpe. However, the King had gone about in disguise when he had been on his opinion-gauging mission, and there could be no anonymity for William, got up as he had to be in his distinctive officer’s finery. Even if he could have masqueraded in the garb of a common soldier, as Henry had done, he knew that he would have been spotted at once. He walked wrongly, with his stiffly measured step; he stood wrongly, with his straight horseman’s back which had never been bowed beneath a pack heavier than half his own body-weight; he looked at them wrongly (down his nose, inevitably, as he was a good two or three inches taller now than the average soldier who had most likely been malnourished from birth – it had been a different matter when he had still been an Ensign in his teens, but he had grown to adult stature in the last two years) and with his air of apparent confidence - no matter that it was entirely assumed and pretended (Halston had taught him how to counterfeit it convincingly, and he had become good at it) - and as for when it came to opening his mouth - ! As it was, the men saw (and heard) who he was, and at once ceased their conversations when he came near; they were polite to him, respectful, friendly - almost - but always guarded, and clearly relieved when at last he said his stilted goodnight and moved on to discomfit another group. William would hear the natural laughter and conversation striking up again as soon as he was gone half a dozen yards off, and that only served to make him feel even more lonely and isolated than he had before. So he gave up wandering amongst the camp-fires of the 33rd and instead took to walking a portion of the perimeter of that part of the vast temporary encampment where the Havercakes and the Nizam’s forces had their designated areas, towards the left-hand, or southern, boundary, wherever they halted for long enough to make it worthwhile to erect their shelters, which was, generally, every two days or so.
Now the picquets challenged him, often sharply, as was of course their duty, although the friendlier ones would mildly wish him good evening afterwards once they had gone through the rigmarole, and warn him of the tigers which came creeping from the jungle, the green menace which was never far away from their route either to the north or the south, to come prowling about their cordon at night, drawn by the scent of butchery and of beasts of prey. This was no idle tale: several times on their journey westward William had first thought he had, and then had convinced himself that indeed he had heard distant roaring in the night; and during the day there was always talk of bullocks which had been taken in the darkness by the savage but magnificent black-striped orange-hued beasts which were said to have penetrated the picquet. Sometimes the victim was rumoured to have been an officer’s horse, and then William would fear for Rufus. Occasionally it was a child which was supposed to have gone missing, or a woman who had gone to fetch water. William never heard these tales from an eye-witness, however – he only ever overheard the rumours as they were passed from man to man around the fires in the night as he crept past them in the shadows.
Another disincentive to prowl about the camp at night had to do with a hazard other than fierce hungry big cats. One evening the mood was more relaxed than usual because they had been due to remain at the site for almost two days – near a village called Kelamangalam, very close now to the border with Mysore - for the British generals had needed once again to consult with Meer Allum, the Nizam and his warlords, so that tents had been pitched and the meals had a more leisurely ambience, and there was not the expectation to have to get into marching order hours before sunrise the next day (there seemed to be no such thing as first light here, William had observed, at least as understood at home in England at fifty-one degrees North: in India at thirteen degrees North, in the early morning the sun was either in the sky, or else it was not - there seemed to be no gradual uprising of the orb; the same went for those times of day which in England would be designated twilight and dusk, when in India, one moment the sun was low, almost touching the horizon, and then, hey-presto, it was gone, and the tropical part of the sub-continent lay in sudden darkness).
It was a Saturday, the ninth day of March, and the Moon was little more than a slender nail-paring of a waxing crescent when, in his wanderings in the near-darkness upon the southern edges of the encampment, William decided to pick his way carefully over to the distant right flank to try to learn what might be occurring of interest amongst the other British regiments. It was then that he inadvertently - and almost literally - stumbled upon perhaps four or five braces of lovers lying here and there upon blankets spread amongst bushes, between bales of fodder, barrels of salt beef, anywhere which offered at least some degree of privacy - taking advantage of the air of general licence which typified a longer than usual stay in any one camping ground. When the march halted for a day or so then the camp often seemed to take on something of a festive air, something between a fair at home in England, an Indian bazaar and a royal menagerie, this latter on account of those elephants and camels belonging to the Nizam’s army. Amongst these amorous couples William was all at once very startled to observe a pair of what were, it soon became clear to him, young men. They were hidden almost entirely in darkness in the shadow cast by a two-wheeled ox-wagon, the Moon then giving just a very little light. The only real illumination was the diffused light of the stars, which were strewn across the night sky like melée diamonds scattered upon a gem merchant’s black velvet counter-cloth. All this was going on well away from the convivial groups around the fires which burned here and there amongst the tent-lines of the King’s regiments of Harris’s column. Fortunately, although by this time William had his night-vision, he could not make out any features of either of the two, and neither were their overheard voices distinctive enough to him to make an impression as they murmured their endearments intended for no ears but each others’ (thankfully they seemed not to have registered his presence); certainly he would not have known them again in daylight – but even if he had, William thought, he would die rather than betray them. He well knew, of course, that his silence would make him complicit in their crime, and that therefore he would share in their punishment, if ever it came to light that he had witnessed them thus in flagrante, in clear breach of the King’s Regulations, and had chosen not to rouse the nearest Sergeant and his Corporals, and have them arrested.
Which was just as well, for unknown to William, the nearest Sergeant was in fact Obadiah Hakeswill, who, skulking in the shadows as was his custom after dark, hoping as ever to learn things to his advantage, and observing the Lieutenant straying from the tent-lines of the 33rd and heading away from the Nizam’s encampment, had decided to follow him to see if he could find out any interesting information which he might conceivably use against the young officer - and now, of course, he had.
Blushing fiercely in the darkness, and thankful at least that the pair had been unknown to him, and had not noticed him, William turned about in stealthy silence and began to make as direct a line as he could back towards the Nizam’s left flank, and for the refuge of his tent and on this occasion – he thought that he had better avail himself, after that shock to his sensibility - the solace of Mama’s Bible. It seemed a very long way in the dark over rough and broken ground which was moreover liberally dotted with piles of animal-dung – horses, bullocks, camels – even one or two mounds which by the dimsensions and contours of their dim outlines he at first took for small domed improvised shelters, but which proved on closer acquaintance to be the leavings of the Nizam’s elephants. Several times William stumbled and once he almost fell into a pile of elephant dung. At last he saw a camp-fire with figures of what looked like British soldiers seen in silhouette against its light, so he walked towards it; when a picquet challenged him he asked for directions to the 33rd and as luck would have it discovered that he had indeed found the Sixth Company of his own Regiment, and from there it was not too far to go to find the Light-Bobs. Without further ado William was soon back safely at the entrance to his tent (it helped that he had left the candle burning in the lantern on his night-table). He took the precaution of removing his boots, bearing in mind his fine expensive carpet, before he pushed in through the flap – God alone knew what he might have walked through on his way to his alarming adventure, and back again.
Once inside, William remembered his resolution about Mama’s Bible and let out a petulant groan, as now he had finally reached sanctuary all he really wanted to do was to go to bed. However, he picked up the book and perused it for a little whilst sitting on his camp-stool (his practice was to avoid anything of a salacious nature from Solomon; he concentrated instead upon the sanguinary, martial verses of Kings and Chronicles, having had the thought that it would be a good idea to seek inspiration from the Scriptures in order to brace his mind and heart for the coming effort against the Tippoo Sultan and his fearsome soldiery). For perhaps twenty minutes William conned over passages describing carnage and bloodshed done in the name of Jehovah, until, with a sigh of relief, sensing duty done for the night, he shut the book.
Next, William looked at Jessica’s portrait for what had become his statutory minute of devotion, true to what he had at first mendaciously claimed was his nightly practice, in his correspondence. Then he pulled off his waistcoat (his coat and sash he had on this occasion left behind upon the clothes-valet before he had set out, reasoning that it was unlikely that anyone would recognise him in the darkness and challenge him on account of his scandalous state of undress), his breeches, his stockings and his neck-cloth. Then he extinguished the candle in the lantern and lay down upon his cot beneath the muslin canopy, meant to keep off biting insects, now wearing only his shirt (shirts in those days still being substantial and long, reaching below mid-thigh, doing double duty as under-linen – drawers would come later as shirts grew less voluminous). He should have preferred to remove that as well but had reluctantly retained it for the sake of decency in case he should be called upon suddenly in the night: he had learned the necessity of this from experience.
William then tried to settle to sleep. However, it went without saying that he got very little rest that night, for his heart was beating too high, and he could barely catch his breath in the oppressive heat in any case. Perhaps inevitably, after that evening’s encounter, all he could think of now as he lay in the oppressively hot alien darkness was the caressing warmth and soft breezes of an afternoon of early summer nine months earlier in far-away England, of lying upon a white bed in a dim chamber scented with roses and lavender, with Mark – oh, Mark! -
For, and try as he might, William, as he lay in the darkness, could not put from his mind the memory of the breath-stopping sight which he had seen earlier that night – the vision of pale slender limbs entwined, glimpsed however dimly and briefly, glimmering faintly in the starlight; of forms engaged in what he had recognised as familiar activity notwithstanding that they had been almost entirely obscured by shadow. At the time, which had been perhaps an hour ago, now, he had struggled to stifle the involuntary gasp of recognition. It came now, escaping him without his conscious intent. Neither had he been able to forget the barely audible gentle sounds, the sighing murmurs, which had caused his ears to burn and his heart to pound in his breast as he had heard those two young men exchanging their soft words of love. Thinking on it, he now suspected that he had recognised the sound of Scottish Gaelic, markedly different in tone from the Irish variant even to his unsubtle English ear; he had not been able to make out the sense but he had not needed to, for the very sound of the words, although unknown to him, had nonetheless held the meaning, for those sentiments were the same in any language. Which Highland regiment had they been from? He knew that there were three in Harris’s Army. Well, he was glad he really had no idea. Each of them had been utterly absorbed in the other, and in their tender wrangling in the blessed haven of wagon’s shadow, both entirely engrossed. William imagined that they had both been quite aware that they were caught up in a march into grave danger - not knowing if one would live and the other die - or the two live - or both be killed together. He wondered also how well, likely almost entirely lacking English, they had understood the more immediate peril in which they would find themselves in case of discovery (was there a Gaelic version of the Articles of War which was read out to the rankers of the Highland regiments on a regular basis? Somehow William doubted it). Yet - how well he had known that the prospect of imminent separation and death could be a perilous spur to reckless conduct! If his passage to India had not been imminent, he knew that he would have taken far greater care in his dealings with Mark. He would not have badgered Mark for meetings in public places, even in the twilight. He would not have gone along with Mark’s somewhat desperate idea of using that shed, in which they had been caught like two coneys in a snare, for it was a certainty that others would have known of the place. It had been an obvious location to search for the pair of them. Most definitely he would not have forgotten the Viscountess’s birthday dinner, and his family obligations, had he not been so preoccupied with sorrow at the thought of the coming separation.
Scalding tears of premonitory pity for those two young men came suddenly and all at unawares to William’s eyes as he lay upon his cot, and he knew then, with a horrible certainty for which he could not account, that they were surely doomed. Oh, why had he been made to witness that scene of present bliss and certain future anguish? He had not set out that evening to become a voyeur! But for all that, in his wildly beating heart he had yet blessed the pair. I was once as happy as you, he silently addressed them now. God be with you. God preserve you both from the pain and sorrow of death and the loss of each other in battle, or else from the shame and infamy of discovery and retribution. “Be careful – oh, for God’s sake, please be careful - !” he said aloud now. But of course, they could not hear him, and even if they had, they might well not have understood him.
Hakeswill, who had dogged his steps all the way back to his tent and who had still been lingering not far off, heard his words and understood their import only too well, however.
“Fucking molly,” he said to himself in disgust. “I’ve got you now, though, Lady Fucking Lawford. One more word out of you about me to Morris and that’s you trussed and stuffed like a fucking Christmas goose.”
The following day, the 10th, they marched again. The Nizam’s force, together with the 33rd, was now marching upon the right flank, having exchanged stations with Harris’s British regiments. They had just set off early in the morning when suddenly musket-fire was heard at the back of the column: moments of confusion ensued and then it emerged that they were being attacked by the Tippoo’s cavalry, which had flanked them in the night and was now assaulting them from the rear. The 33rd’s Light Company was all at once in action. Everything happened so suddenly! William raced towards the chaos with the rest of them, ready to do or die, either or both of which of course he knew very well was his job, although he felt rather regretful all at once. It was not the doing he minded, of course, but the thought of dying rather worried him. Up until then the campaign had on the whole been quite a pleasant and interesting saunter westward (apart from the dust and the biting insects and the ever-present threat from the jungle); and now he was having to consider the real possibility that it was all about to end for him, and in the most unhappy way possible.
As things turned out, however, William did not have to do much, and he certainly did not have to die. Wellesley himself led the counter-attack, which was brief and bloody, and they succeeded in driving off the Tippoo’s troops with minimal British and Sepoy casualties, which were nonetheless still worse than what one might have hoped. This experience naturally helped to concentrate William’s mind. For a time after this he made himself focus solely upon his duties, and more or less successfully banished yearning thoughts of Mark, and longing thoughts of Richard Sharpe, and anxiety about the two Highland rankers. Events were taking a grim turn.
On the 19th of March, Harris turned his army south-west and for two days there were no further sightings of Tippoo Sultan’s cavalry scouts. On the 21st of March they came up to the village of Cankanelli. The subsequent four days were spent negotiating a way through thick tope country. Progress became slow, but not just because of the trees: there was a dispute involving the Brinjarree tribesmen, who took exception to new regulations which had come into force regarding their business transactions. Then on the 24th of March came better news at last: James Stuart of the Bombay Presidency Army, which had been converging upon Harris’s Madras force from the north-west, reported to Harris in person and told him of the successful outcome of a battle which his force had fought against Tippoo at Sedaseer on the 6th, just about within sight of Seringapatam.
On the 26th Harris’s horde camped near the village of Mallavelly, and it was there that it first came under distant fire from Tippoo Sultan’s artillery. Harris now decided that the time had finally come to confront Tippoo in open battle.
Meanwhile, William once again had been spending sizeable portions of his nights engaged, not in dreams as such but in waking reveries of Mark, for, perhaps inevitably, the sight of the lovers, notwithstanding his best efforts, had kindled in him anew all the emotion and sensation and longing which he had spent the last ten months attempting to entomb beyond all possibility of resurrection (so much for that). In these imaginings, Mark had somehow transferred miraculously now into the 33rd, as if having been transported over oceans and continents on angels’ wings, like St Bride in the charming legend. They would stand together before the walls of Seringapatam and die defending each other from the onslaughts of the ferocious moustachioed heathens – had not such things been known in the armies of ancient Athens and Sparta? But, inevitably, after about a week of this, William, shut up in his stifling tent yet again, and yearningly listening to the muffled conversation of familiar voices without, punctuated by bursts of laughter, found that the isolation and the dwelling upon memories was becoming once again too hard and too painful to bear; and so an evening arrived, when the Moon was waxing gibbous, which once again saw him creep forth from his tent to take up his old station from which he might vicariously enjoy the company of Sharpe and his friends. On this occasion (and perilously, for William) Sharpe was seated on the far side of the fire from William’s point of observation, and its light was on his face, giving William a clear view of his features, which were just then animated by the spirit of mischief and fun, and no doubt the effects of cheap alcohol of some kind also. It occurred to him then that if Sharpe were plainly visible to him, then so must he be to Sharpe. He did not want to draw attention to himself, to reveal himself by movement, however, so he continued to sit where he was, as still as he could contrive, his head bent forward, face towards the ground, as the men of Sharpe’s circle finished sharing the evening’s meal – a kind of stew of salt-beef and beans and hard biscuit - and then gave themselves over to their customary jesting and singing, drinking and smoking.
“Hakeswill! that toad-spawned wall-eyed spavined scapegallows, that I-cannot-die yellow-faced bastard!” he heard Sharpe say just then, (as also, incidentally, did Hakeswill, lurking invisibly nearby; he had been about to set off on a private mission to the wagon-park near the tent-lines of the 74th, as he had every evening since the night upon which he had followed William and had observed there what the Lieutenant had observed but had failed to report, but had delayed his departure when he had caught his name being taken in vain by Sharpie) a perorational flourish which William guessed was the culmination of a tirade which had been in progress for some time. “I hope he comes down with the Malabar Itch! A nice bath of dilute nitric acid would do him a power of good! Let’s hope Micklewhite prescribes him one without delay!” There came a shout of laughter from the group of comrades ranged about the fire.
“And the Marthambles!” came a different voice, from someone who was sitting on the side of the fire opposite from Sharpe, whose back was towards William.
“What’s that?” “Marthambles. They has them all the time in the Navy, so I’ve heard. Ain’t that right, Harry? Sheep and goats get the Marthambles, don’t they?”
“Not that I ever heard,” said Harry, the Wiltshire shepherd. “Sheep get the bloat and worms and foot-rot and liver-fluke, that I know. I never had no truck with goats, though.”
“May he be brought low by the full set of distempers both maritime and terranean!” said a tipsy Tom Garrard then, waving his mug in a toast to the proposition, and there was another shout of hilarity from the group around the fire.
I hope Hakeswill didn’t just hear any of that, William thought, in vain, shaking his head. Under cover of the hilarity he retired to his tent, did not bother with his Bible (he had had enough of smiting the heathen, after recent events - although he did glance at Jessica’s unsatisfactory portrait for a few moments, and decided that, if he ever lived to go home to England, he would find a decent artist who would paint her likeness properly), undressed, lay down upon the cot and once again in his head welcomed his herb-sweet phantom lover, Mark Lucas.
The Past: Durford Park, May 1798.
There had been what the local people had called a hanger, in the beechwoods beyond the landscaped parkland which lay around the House; a steep bank above the inward curve of the small river called Rother, where it looped around the foot of a low hill. The stream had been deep below the sandy cliff, seven or eight feet in that stretch, at that time of year, in early May, when the bluebells had been in flower - when the water of the winter rains had still been coming down abundantly out of the chalk hills of the South Downs - and the current strong. The corresponding shore on the far side of the river, the outer curve of the loop, had been a flat beach comprised of chalky mud and coarse gravel, and the water had been shallow there - eighteen inches, perhaps - barely knee high to a person of average height, anyway; but below the hither bank it had been deep enough to swallow a man, if he had had the misfortune to fall, to strike his head on the way down the hangar, and to plunge in senseless. William had been squatting precariously upon his heels on the lip of the hanger with his sketch-book and pastels, attempting to capture the effect of sunlight shining through the unfurling beech leaves with their gem-like brilliance: that jewel-green, the peridot-green of early spring – in the tangential light of late afternoon which had been causing them to glow as if with their own inner brilliance. Suddenly a jay had called loudly as it had come barrelling through the boughs, low above William’s head, in a blur of blue and buff. Startled, instinctively he had begun to rise, had stumbled upon a tussock of the coarse grass which had clothed the brink of the acute slope, had fallen - and had begun to tumble helplessly down the precipitous bank towards the river. Mark, who had been crouching close beside him, observing with intense interest the action of his hand and his pencil and brush as he had worked, at once seeing the danger, had leapt after him down the steep incline as William had careered ruinously through the masses of bluebells which had covered it. Eventually, almost at the edge of the ten-foot drop from the overhanging bluff into the river - just as Mark had caught up and had been reaching out to seize hold of him - William had by some lucky chance been balked in his otherwise unstoppable trajectory by the bole of a beech. He had exclaimed aloud in pain and shock as most of the breath had been driven out of him. Dazed and winded, bruised, bleeding here and there from scratches he had acquired in the course of his precipitous descent, William had lain there upon his back, looking up at the tenderest and bluest of skies through the greening canopy which had glowed golden as the light of the westering sun above it had shone through the leaves, filtered and muted as candle-light mediated through the thin slivers of the horn windows of a lantern. The contrast between the last few tumultuous and frightening moments and this sudden vision of utter serenity had struck him as an impossible juxtaposition as he had lain half-stunned, attempting to make sense of what had just happened.
At first William had thought that he had been quite alone, having temporarily forgotten that Mark had been with him at the top of the hanger, but then Mark’s face had suddenly entered his field of vision, very close-to. Mark’s features had seemed a little out of focus. That would have been his rattled wits, William had supposed.
“Sir! Sir! Are you all right?”
Mark had somehow ended his own headlong flight down the hanger by falling on top of him, knocking such breath as had remained in William’s body quite out of him. William had looked up into his face, mere inches from his own, now seeing it with perfect clarity, at first in shock and bewilderment, even in outrage at this apparent assault.
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean – I meant to stop you ending up in the river, but this tree did the job for me.”
Mark’s voice, at first arriving as if from a far distance, was now immediate and close. He had lain gasping as Mark’s green eyes, the same spring green as the burgeoning woodland canopy, had fearfully found and held his (which had been, Mark had thought, and had been later to tell him, of one hue with the bluebells lately crushed by William’s hurtling tumble down the hanger), seeking his pardon.
“Of course,” William had said, at last, when he had had a little breath in him once again. His expectation now had been that Mark would get off him and offer his hand to help him up - but Mark had not moved. Mark’s eyes had still held his, seemingly full of urgency. Why? Had he not made it plain that he had accepted Mark’s explanation and apology? But then, it had struck William all at once – with a shock to his soul as great as the shock which his body had lately received - Mark had now been asking more than merely his pardon, and with a flash of insight dazzling as spring lightning William had known at once what it was that Mark sought, and thus the questing, searching, urgent gaze of the peridot eyes had at last found out the response which Mark had evidently hoped to find in William’s own: the answer to the question which the two of them, it had now been plain, had been pondering separately for a twelve-month or longer. Together they had found it, in that moment, lying on the bluff above the woodland river, each gazing into the eyes of the other, and it was simply this: yes. Yes. A thousand times - yes.
“How did you know?” he had asked Mark, after, once the power of reason and coherent speech had returned to him.
“I read it in your face, in your eyes, sir. I don’t mean just now. Well, I do, but I first thought I saw it a long way back. Last year. Then I thought, no, he can’t mean that. Then I was not sure. So I thought I would give you the rose, to see what you would do - but you did nothing - so I thought… then this year I was certain I’d seen it, in March, that first time you came into the kitchen garden, even. The way you looked at me then.”
“Was I really so obvious? I suppose I must have been. Foolish. Foolish!” “Why foolish, sir, to feel like that? It didn’t feel foolish a little while since, did it, when you and I - ?”
“No, it did not,” William had said, unable to prevent himself from blushing fiercely at being reminded of what they had lately done together. “I never could dissemble,” he had said, then.
“If by that you mean you wear your heart upon your sleeve, sir, you aren’t wrong,” said Mark, with surprising directness, at last rolling off him, sitting up and settling back against the beech tree. “I’ve known for weeks what it was you wanted, even if you didn’t, perhaps – although I think you really did. Why doesn’t he just say it, I used to think to myself, whenever you came to the garden with your drawing things, trying to look invisible, like you weren’t really there. Doesn’t he know how to ask? And then it struck me that you couldn’t speak because you really didn’t know! Even just now – I was thinking, now we’ve nearly come to it, I wager he’ll find a way out - he’ll just come it the Honourable again and thank me kindly and then chatter at me all the way back to the Abbey, all the while telling himself that the things his heart is trying to persuade him of can’t possibly be true – that what he wants could never be, in all the wide world – so I thought.”
William had thought about that for a little. Then he had said,
“Do I do that? Chatter?”
“Yes, sir, like a magpie! When your nerves are plaguing you, or you’re afraid you’re about to let slip something about yourself that you had rather other folk didn’t see.”
For a little they had remained silent together in the declining light of the late afternoon, which by then, beneath the trees, had been swiftly becoming early evening - William lying looking up into the woodland canopy, Mark with his back to the beech, gazing regretfully uphill at the bluebells through which the wide swathe of destruction had been wrought. William had imagined meanwhile that Mark had probably been feeling sorry for the flowers.
“My sister Martha…” Mark had gone on, eventually, somewhat hesitantly. “Martha and I are twins, sir, and we do look very much alike; and she’s counted the prettiest girl in Durford. Not beautiful. I suppose only ladies can be that.”
William had laughed, a little sadly.
“I’ve heard it said that no woman without a fortune can be considered a beauty. (1) A cynical sentiment I do not happen to share.”
“Martha has no fortune, certainly, sir; but she is considered very pretty – the nearest to beautiful a girl in her situation in life can be, I suppose you could say. I hope you don’t think me vain, sir, but I’ve seen men’s faces when they look at her; and you looked at me in just that way the first time you came into the kitchen garden.”
“Oh, God. I really am that transparent? I should never make an Exploring Officer, or what my uncle says they are nowadays beginning to call Intelligencers.”
“I don’t know what either of those things is, sir. But I remember you from that Twelfth Night, back in Eighty-Five, it must have been, or Eighty-Six new-style, now London says we must begin the reckoning of the year from the first day of January, and not from Lady Day any longer.”
“It has been that way for nearly half a century now, Mark.”
“Try telling that to the country folk, sir! Begging your pardon. But you did stare so then.”
“Did I? That was rude of me! I remember thinking how pretty you were, both of you – you and Martha. Mark… we were, what, just eight, nine years old?”
“Whether or no. I remember I forgot to bow until Martha told me, because I thought you were the fairest creature I’d ever laid my eyes on, and everything else just went clean out of my head.”
“Oh, Mark…”
“It’s true, sir. I’d never seen you that close, you see.”
William had been overwhelmed then at the memory of what had befallen half an hour since, and now by the sight of Mark as he reclined against the bole of the tree, looking as if he were truly at home there, fair as a woodland sprite with his eyes the green of the newly-opened leaves and his hair the glowing red-gold of the sinking sun.
“Mark,” he had said, reverently. “You are beautiful! so that means Martha must be, too, whether or no she is a lady. Or has or has not a fortune.”
There had been another short silence; then Mark had said,
“Sir… what happened after you left the servants’ hall that night? Mr Wright said he was afraid you’d be punished if they caught you. I always remembered that. Martha and I could not understand why you would be punished just for coming downstairs to listen to the music.”
“He was correct. I was forbidden from associating with the servants, or using their ways. I had a habit of using the back ways, the back stairs, of speaking to the servants as if they were my friends. My family did not like this. I disgraced my rank, they always said, when I tried to speak to the servants as if they were my fellow-men, equal in status. Perhaps they were afraid because of the events in France. But they were like that even before the Revolution happened. Well, that night my brother Charles was lying in wait as I tried to slip out of the back-staircase door unnoticed. He at once gave me a whipping.”
“Oh, sir! Your own brother!” Mark had been shocked.
“The Viscount was often in our estate in Barbados in those days. Charles used to take it upon himself to discipline the rest of us when he was away, Henry and Francis and me. Charles is married now with a house of his own, well up-county, thank God.”
“That was cruel, sir, that he should do that – and at Christmas-time!”
“It was not too bad,” William had said, pretending indifference. “Besides, it really was my own fault. I had been told often enough that I should not use the back stairs and the servants’ passageways. And it was by no means the worst whipping he’d ever dealt me, in any case.”
Again there was silence; and then Mark had said,
“Sir…”
“Yes?”
“When I saw you sleeping in the rose garden, a year since… I had not changed my opinion since I was eight years old. You were still the fairest creature I’d ever seen. So I chose the fairest rose, sir. For the fairest. I still don’t know how I dared. Afterwards, I thought, you fool! what if he’d woken before you’d placed it, and he’d seen you, the gardener’s boy in a stained leather apron and a straw hat with a broken brim, just standing there with the rose in your hand, gawping at him? I was sure you’d have been angry. But I’d wanted to see what you would do, afterwards, and that over-mastered the fear of you being angry with me. It was important.”
“Oh, Mark! I wish you had stayed! I should so have loved to awaken to the sight of you, and the rose…”
“I was only just in time. I saw you had begun to stir. I … had to go.”
“I thought at once it must have been you, because I’d noticed you were there before I slept, and then when I looked about after I’d woken, you had gone! But I didn’t understand why you would do that… it was a mystery.”
“No mystery now. Look at the bluebells, sir,” Mark had said then, evidently abashed, changing the subject. “See how they seem to glow, at this hour.”
William had looked. The blue-violet flowers with their chastely drooping heads had indeed glowed strangely in the fading daylight, like - like the flowers of faërie, perhaps, he had thought, lending something of - no, not the eerie, the eldritch – those Gothic effects which the authors of the popular novels laboured so hard to evoke in their over-heated prose, the better to titillate their readers’ fancies, were not to the point here. The flowers lent something to the spot rather of the ethereal and unearthly, casting a subtle glamour so that it had seemed to have been undergoing a transformation as the light of the sun had waned and the diamond brilliance of the vesper star in the western sky had accordingly waxed in magnitude. The bluebell hanger had been in the process of becoming, for a little, as day turned to night, an enchanted and magical haven, no longer a place of menace and threat.
“So – for more than a year?” William had said. “Why didn’t you ever - ?”
“Oh, sir! How can you ask me that? There had to come a right time. And for aught I knew that right time would never – could never – come. I couldn’t just – the Lord knows I’m only someone who works in the Viscount’s garden! I’m nobody. Your grandfather is the Earl of Winchester! How could I? We had not even spoken then! Not for more than ten years, at any rate. I don’t count six months ago, Christmas morning. It wasn’t for me to show you how I – my – my – if you will – my heart, sir – what it - wanted. It never could have been for me to do that. I knew that it would take an intervention by - by Providence.”
“Providence?”
“When you fell just now. That was Providence, as my father would have called it. A happy accident. Something that was meant. A thing neither of us could have contrived, sir.”
William had considered that. He had doubted very much that the Rector would have agreed that Providence, in Protestant discourse generally a euphemism for the Almighty, had had a hand in it. He preferred the pagan notion of Fate, at any rate, and had done since he had first studied the works of the ancient philosophers and poets at school - although later, of course, he would come to think of it as Doom.
“What did you think when you saw it - the rose - sir?” Mark had said, after a little, shyly. “I’ve long been a curious to know.”
“Well, goodness! My first thought, on waking to see this unexpected splash of scarlet upon my, my breast, was that it was a portent! I thought it meant that if I returned to the Thirty-Third I’d be killed for certain sure, as soon as ever I set foot in India!”
“Oh, sir!” Mark had said, abashed. “I never meant to alarm you!”
“Rest assured, Mark, that was just my foolishness. Superstition! Signs and portents! Ridiculous. I am sure that it came of my being ill, and of being too much alone – and of reading too many crepuscular novels, probably! In very short order I told myself to be rational and put such nonsense aside. It was obvious that someone – you, as it turns out! - had left it for me as a gift and that it had been kindly meant. It seemed a little odd, but after my first fright I could not possibly imagine that it had been done with any sinister intent. I called for Collins and asked him to find me a vase á bourgeons for the flower and told him to take it to my chamber. Later that afternoon I pressed it in a book - of poetry – Blake – he wrote a poem called The Rose (2) - I do not know why I did that instead of leaving it be, to flower and to bloom and to fall, as Nature intends; perhaps because it was so beautiful, perfect - and I could not bear to see it fade and wither! The instinct to preserve beauty and perfection is strong in mankind, I think, evidence of our having our being from the Creator - we are fallen but we continue to strive after our first state of uncorrupted innocence, that time when there had been still no blight of decline or death, or of corruption, before the world was marred by sin.”
“Sir…” Mark had said, dutifully, to that.
“I still have your rose, Mark. It is now mummified but I can still catch its ghostly fragrance when I unwrap it from its shroud of tissue paper from time to time. For a year it had been an intriguing enigma and a memento of a strange if charming incident; now I know for certain that you were the author of that scene, it is even more precious to me.”
“As you have long been to me, sir,” Mark had said, evidently relieved to be back on sure ground once more. “Ah, look sir!” he had said then, pointing across the river to the farther shore, as a welcome distraction from high-flown philosophising had erupted into sight out of the trees and onto the small stony beach.
“What is it?” William had said, turning and peering into the lengthening shadows.
“The deer, sir; they are coming down to drink. They come to that place every evening at this time, when the light is fading. It seems that it is in some way special to them, for they always choose it above many similar margins upon this river. They cross by the ford a little upstream - the one that first gave Durford its name.”
“I had never seen them do that before. I shall take their appearance, harbingers of dusk, as a sign that we ought also perhaps to be upon our way.”
“In a little, sir,” Mark had said, leaving his station by the tree and coming to lie in his arms once again.
“Mark, Mark, what are we to do?” William had said, eventually, still stroking the astonishing red-golden hair, gazing into the peridot eyes, hidden in shadow now, longing to see more of Mark than just his face and his throat and his hands, longing to touch him without the intervening hindrance of garments of cotton and linen and wool. The knowledge that that would probably never be possible had smote upon his breast like a blow even in those first fleeting hours of joy.
“About what, sir?”
“I am going away to India at the end of July - I do not know when I shall come back - if I ever shall - ”
“Yes, sir, I know. But for now, it’s barely May, and you haven’t gone yet. We’ll have almost three months. And then I suppose after you’ve gone, we’ll both be sad, but that’s what life is, in the end. Sadness. That’s what Mother said when Father died.”
“Mark – oh, Mark – we really must go now. Night is falling.”
William and Mark, who had entered the wood as master and servant, had now left it as lovers already doomed.
Dinner that evening had of course been a parlous affair. The close questioning by the Viscount, who for some reason had seemed from the outset to be trying to trap William in his words, had unnerved him. Then, lying alone in his chamber later, in the dark of that night, the uncomfortable thought had occurred to William suddenly – how had Mark had an idea of what to do? How had he been so confident?
On the 19th of May 1798 the French fleet sailed from Toulon bound for Alexandria, whence it appeared, at least according to some opinionated people who liked to write to the newspapers, that General Bonaparte planned to advance his battalions overland to a Red Sea port, where, they asserted, a fleet of transports already awaited them, to bear them to a confrontation with the British in India. It was being bruited that the Upstart had even been in correspondence with the Tippoo Sultan, the Tiger King of Mysore. News of this was received at Durford with the customary sang-froid (3) with which alarming intelligence from abroad had generally been received in that place.
“It seems that you are to be up against a whole French army, not a mere few military advisers and a half-trained rabble of hill-tribesmen, after all,” said the Viscount to William, looking up from his newspaper when William walked into the breakfast-room one sunny morning. “But I do not quail. I have full confidence that you and your colleagues will send them packing in short order.”
“Sir?” said William, who had been until that point quite lost in a waking dream of Mark.
“You go soon to engage the French and their client-princes in India, do you not, William?”
“Oh - yes – ”
“For one moment just then I received the impression that the matter had quite slipped from your mind.”
“Oh, no, sir – never!”
“Then I was mistaken, and England has nothing to fear. I shall inform the Viscountess accordingly, who will no doubt be very relieved to hear it.”
“Has she been very much alarmed by the talk of invasion, sir?” William had said, tentatively, as he had gone to the side-board to see what had been prepared for them for breakfast that day.
“Yesterday she was talking of sending her pug to Spean Bridge for the wretched animal’s own safety, should the French invade once they have beaten Boy Wesley in India. You know, I am certain that family is related to that pair of pestilential Enthusiasts, Charles and John. Mornington denies it, but I do not believe him.”
William had looked at him uncertainly, the lid of a chafing-dish in his hand as he had been about to help himself to a mutton chop. “…Mr Johnson?” he said, hesitantly, reverting to the subject of Lady Petersfield’s pug. He had not wished to become embroiled in a discussion as to whether or not Arthur Wesley, as he had still spelled his name then, had been a secret Methodist sympathiser. After all, he had come to admire Colonel Wesley greatly when he had been in Flanders.
“Curtis has told her that the French eat dogs for breakfast.”
“No, sir, not the French; they would not, I am certain. They are not sav- “
The Viscount had fixed him with a look.
“Do not you tell me that the French are not savages, sir,” he had said. “The reason we went to war with them in Ninety-Three was because they had cut the head off their lawful King. And then they spent a year working their way through their aristocratic families. Imagine your mother on a scaffold in her shift, her hair hacked off, about to have her neck locked into the block of a guillotine, and then tell me that the French are not savages.”
William had glanced at the chop. The very word had now made him think of decapitation. He had left it where it was and had replaced the lid of the dish and then had helped himself to porridge instead.
“The Hanoverians, however – “ he had ventured then, timidly.
But the Viscount had gone back to his newspaper.
Theirs – Mark’s and William’s - had always been destined to be a fugitive love-on-the-run affair of surreptitious, nerve-racking hasty encounters beset with anxiety – meeting always in shadowed corners, by tumbledown walls of what had been the outbuildings of Durford Abbey now half-buried in brambles and nettles (not the happiest of venues), in out-houses, in lofts and in shepherds’ huts, in the woods at twilight (always, save once, at twilight - just as the stars had been beginning to appear: the magical hour) - never the same place twice in succession, save once, and then disastrously. When, on a mere handful of occasions, there had been time to go further than merely kiss and fleetingly embrace, it had still been a frustratingly rushed business, and almost always they had been fully-clothed in case they had suddenly had to break apart and flee in opposite directions, as had happened once or twice. Just once, once only - that sacred occasion – had William enjoyed a hot June afternoon of peace and sheer utter bliss with Mark, upon a goose-feather bed, with starched and lavender-scented sheets and crisp generous pillows, without fear of discovery – almost without fear of discovery – the fear had always been there, of course - where they had dared to lie completely unclothed in each other’s arms; not for as long as he had wanted – forever would not have been long enough! Mark’s almost uncannily beautiful hair had been loose and free – the first time, the only time that William had ever been privileged to see it thus. He had begged the favour, the tips of his fingers caressing Mark’s face the while, and Mark had allowed him to unbind his queue. The restraint of the black ribbon removed, his hair had fallen about his face and shoulders like a molten cascade, and William’s heart had melted utterly before the power of its incandescent beauty - more entirely than it had even at his first sight of Mark’s almost translucent alabaster-fragile naked loveliness. Yet that being so, notwithstanding the fortuitous absence of Mrs Lucas, and the locked door, they had still not felt themselves quite safe enough to take the risk of falling asleep together after they had obeyed the imperative of Eros once – twice - in the gauche and naïve way which, in what had been still their near-innocence, their almost-ignorance, had been all they had been able to improvise; but that had never been going to happen.
All the same, he had been espied once again returning late to the House. Thank goodness, William had thought, that on this occasion it had been only Mama who had observed his return.
“I have been walking, Madam,” was all that he had said, in answer to Lady Petersfield’s rather puzzled enquiry – which had been the truth, of course - if only a part of it.
“Walking, William? Alone? For six hours?”
“It has been a fine day and evening: I am one-and-twenty years old, Mama, and, you will recall, an officer in King George’s Thirty-Third Regiment of Foot; and it is not yet dark. I was not in any danger.”
“All the same, I do not like to think of you roaming the countryside by yourself. There are undesirables and strange people – foreigners, even – gypsies! - who loiter in the woods and hedge-rows.”
“That has always been the case, Mama. One cannot cower at home forever because of the chance that there might be dangerous strays and vagrants abroad.”
“I have never gone beyond the shrubbery in ten years now, for that very reason! Not since the wicked French rose up against their masters. Be sure to say ‘Good-night’ to the Viscount before you go up,” Mama had concluded then, clearly puzzled and hurt. “He is in his study. All afternoon he had been constantly seeking me out and asking me over and again where you had gone to, in the most pointed way. The Viscount was displeased when I answered that I could not say. His continual ill-tempered irruptions into the drawing-room disturbed Mr Johnson’s rest most grievously!”
All of that had happened on Trinity Sunday, which that year had fallen upon the third of June. Mark, with his viol in its oiled canvas bag, had been waiting for him after Divine Service in the shadow of the lych-gate, then had approached him discreetly and in a low voice had said,
“Sir – come by the cottage this afternoon?”
“Mark - ?” he had said, not knowing how to understand – was this a statement or a question?
“Mother’s at Gosport. Her sister, my Aunt Elizabeth, died two days ago. Mother’s gone to help out Uncle John. She’ll be away now until after the funeral on Thursday.”
He had begun to understand. Meanwhile, Mark had gone on,
“I offered to beg leave to go with her, but she’s afraid of the press-gangs - you know how it is, sir. Will you come to the back door? Come through the copse. Take care in case you’re followed. I had better go now,” Mark had ended, inclining his head slightly towards the south door of the church, where the Viscountess had been concluding her customary hebdomadal exchange with the Rector, who was all deferential bobs and ingratiating smiles, as he always was with her (he never dared try nonsense of that sort on the Viscount, not since Lord Petersfield had once told him, in front of the departing members of the congregation, to leave off his confounded unmanly sycophancy) and had now been making her sedate way to the gate accompanied by her maid, Curtis, who, obliged to carry both their prayer-books in addition to the Viscountess’s large and elaborately-bound Bible, and looking, as ever, somewhat glum and put-upon, appeared the very embodiment of that virtuous condition of piety without enthusiasm (4) extolled by those clergy of the Church of England desirous of establishing clear blue theological water between themselves and certain of their Methodist rivals.
Meanwhile, some distance from the lych-gate, Tom Griffiths had been standing by an ancient lichen-covered box-tomb, so old that the weather-worn death’s-heads carved upon its fissured sides were now blurred and indistinct and the inscription upon its cracked table had become all but illegible, staring sullenly at them. William had shuddered at the sight of him, and the tomb by which he stood, for complicated historic reasons; then he had turned back to Mark in order to make an observation –
“Why, there is Tom again, looking daggers – !“
But Mark had slipped away.
Walking home with his mother William had had a difficult time of it, simultaneously fielding her customary anodyne banalities whilst urgently trying to sift Mark’s enigmatic words for their import.
“Are you listening to me, William?” the Viscountess had said, after some minutes of this.
“Of course, Mama.”
“I said, the Rector’s wife presumes too much upon her husband’s standing with the Viscount. And you answered that you supposed that at least three-quarters of the parish could not stand the Viscount.”
“I am sorry, Madam: I did not hear you aright. I also apologise for my disrespectful words spoken unguarded in relation to your worshipful lord.”
“Yes, very well, very well,” Lady Petersfield had said impatiently, clearly suspecting sarcasm. “And then I said, ‘I meant, she dresses in far too grand a style – the robe Française is an archaic relique and utterly passé – I suspect she wears the hand-me-downs of an older and far wealthier relation! And it is not at all commensurate with her station; and as for her caps - !’ To which you replied, if I am not mistaken, ‘Approach through the copse.’”
“I am truly sorry for my lack of attentiveness, Mama. Your remark must have set me contemplating upon some incident which occurred when I was in Flanders. They, er, have a lot of copses, in Flanders. Very bosky, the Low Countries. Curtis?”
The maid, a plain woman in her late forties and therefore unused to being addressed by personable young men (although she was aware the situation might have been different had she been in possession of a fortune, or even a respectable annuity, notwithstanding that she was in her forties) had started as if she had anticipated a rebuke.
“Sir?” she had said, hesitantly. She had always found Mr William’s insistence on an informal approach to treating with the servants disconcerting, and she sometimes had caught herself wondering whether he might not perhaps be a little touched in the head, what with his bizarre behaviour in his childhood, forever bolting off and hiding and being the occasion of a ruckus when Mr Charles would set his brothers to hunt him down, and having a public attack of the hysterics when his governess had been sent away – still, what else could one expect of the bastard of an Irish peer – the Irish were all mad, everyone knew that. Mr Charles, one knew where one’s place was when one was with him – if you were unfortunate that would be on your back on the floor of the still-room or the linen-closet, with him on top of you - the arrogant entitled cods-for-brains; Mr Henry and Mr Francis were polite but distant, as was fitting; but Mr William would persist in attempting to engage her in conversation as if she were a human being rather than the efficient obedient automaton that she was barely, grudgingly, paid to be, and that had always unsettled her.
“Do you think that the Rector’s lady dresses inordinately above her station? It had not struck me; but then, I do not notice ladies’ fashions, and am not proficient in interpreting the signs which advertise a lady’s position in society by means of the cut of her gown.”
“Sir, I do not think that it is my place to express a view concerning such matters,” Curtis had said primly.
“Come now, Curtis! You are a lady’s maid of some considerable experience. You are professionally invested in all things pertaining to Lady Petersfield’s toilet, and daily choice of wearing-apparel, are you not?”
“That is so, sir; but I do not think it fitting to discuss such things with gentlemen. They are matters of some delicacy, and are only properly to be spoken of between a lady and her attendants.”
“I am sorry, Curtis,” William had said, abashed. “I only thought that a second female opinion…”
“William, really!” Mama had interjected. “Curtis does not count as female! At least, not so far as you are concerned. You must bear in mind your rank. The Viscount is frequently exercised on account of your continually appearing to forget it.”
“I do not forget it, Mama. It is made very difficult for me ever to forget it.”
“The Viscount believes to the contrary.”
By this time William had been having difficulties reining in his temper. He had taken a few breaths, had clenched and unclenched his hands, and had then gone on,
“Mama, do you never contemplate upon the thought that these ranks – these distinctions – that they were not known to Adam and Eve and their offspring?”
“Why should I so? But now I come to think of it, I suppose that when Man was yet in his happy state of innocence in Eden no ranks were needed because all knew their duty and were content with their lot. It was only after our first parents sinned and were cast out of Paradise that it became needful for rulers to be set over their progeny, to command them and to keep their sinful natures in check, as if they were horses that required bit and bridle to do their work in accordance with the Divine will.”
William had been surprised by that. It had been the least superficial statement upon matters of religion, he had thought, which he had ever heard his mother make.
“That is a good argument founded upon the Scriptures,” he had said. “It does credit to the tradition in which you were raised in Scotland. I think Uncle Hector would have approved of that. But we live in changing times and by no means does everyone today take the Bible for their guide. The French, for example – “
“The French!” Mama had exclaimed in horror. Curtis had faintly echoed her.
“These ranks and distinctions – some would say that they have had their day, and that this is partly why the French people rose against their rulers nine years ago – and why they might invade us yet, for our own good, as they would see it, to rid us - “
“The French rose because the French King’s coffers were empty after years of futile bootless war against England, which was only prosecuted out of spite, and out of envy of England’s happy state of freedom beneath the enlightened aegis of a constitutional Monarchy - and the people suffered – and continue to suffer, for their leaders do not truly care for them – that is what the Viscount says.”
“But Mama, that is not the half of it!”
“William, hush! Please ensure that you do not express these - Levellers’ views - before the Viscount.”
“The Levellers pulled down hedges and filled in ditches because they did not believe in Enclosure, Mama. They did not intend that degrees of rank should be extinguished. You need not worry that I might choose to speak of hedging and ditching at dinner.”
“However that might be. This talk of equality – the Viscount already believes you to be half a Jacobin, so pray do not speak in that way in his presence. And do not permit your attention to wander at table, where we shall be at luncheon shortly, I beg. The Viscount has mentioned to me that you have seemed much preoccupied of late – as if he supposes that I should know why that should be.”
“The Vi-!” he had bit his lip. When speaking to him of Lord Petersfield she had always, of course, referred to her husband as the Viscount. Never Papa, or even your father. The Viscount. He suspected that it was her way of circumventing what would very probably otherwise have been a lie, thus salving her conscience; but he could never hear her referring to the man whom the world called his father as the Viscount without suffering a deadly pang at his heart. It might not have been so bad, even, he had sometimes thought, had she called him Lord Petersfield. Just not the bloody Viscount!
(Aged about seven years, William had once asked Francis, who must have been about thirteen at the time,
“When Mama speaks to you and Henry and Charles of Father, does she call him the Viscount, or Papa?”
“Why, William! Mama speaks of Papa! Why ask you so singular a question?”
“Mama ever speaks to me only of the Viscount.”
Francis had graced him then with a sympathetic look, but had said no more.)
“Am I in trouble, Mama?”
“No; but you know how the Viscount dislikes abstraction in a young person. He regards it as a reprehensible affectation - which he believes in your case comes of over-indulgence in reading and in music.”
“Mama, but it was important that I helped Mr Tolfree to get the music right today. There are so many radicals panting to tear down godly religion and replace it with their mad antinomian notions. Our immemorial faith is in God in three Persons, the blessed Trinity. We cannot abide to have lawless men pull that asunder in favour of every man his own interpreter of Scripture.”
Abstraction? William had thought that he might have taken lessons in that from his mother, who most of the time, it had seemed to him, had made her languid way through life as though half-asleep, or at the least permanently distracted. He had known for a long time that she had regularly consoled herself with a few drops of laudanum in a glass of wine, two or three times a day, but lately he had been beginning to suspect the onset of a serious habit.
“The Viscount believes that you should devote your leisure to more manly occupations, William, following the example of Charles. He believes that by doing so you would hasten your recovery. You should ride more, perhaps. You were always a good horseman. The first time the Viscount set you on the pony when you were five years old, he said that it was clear that you had the seat for it.”
“That must have been about the only time he has ever approved of me.”
“At the next meet of the hunt, you should ride, I think.”
“I’m afraid I rather fell out of the habit of the chase during the time when I was ill, Mama. And now it is not the season, and I shall be gone from England by the time that the hunt next meets. Perhaps I shall hunt tigers in India, however! Uncle Hector once told me of such a thing, to pass the time, when we were aboard the packet from Oban.”
“Tigers! William, the very idea!”
“The hunting parties ride out on elephants, he said.”
“Elephants!”
“You know, Mama, elephants; huge grey Behemoths; trunks like pythons and ears like the leaves of that giant rhubarb that grows in Lady Lavington’s bog-garden, with the description of which I recall you enlivened dinner one evening when you had invited the Rector and his flaunting extravagant lady. I further recall that he remarked that we had better not plant any, for rhubarb is said to be poisonous to deer. But I shall ride Audax soon. The poor beast misses me – at least, I flatter myself that he does. Ned Weston sees to it that he is at least exercised regularly, and I visit him in his stall every day – I take him something, a carrot or an apple – to show him that I have not forgot him.”
“The Petersfield hunt missed you last Christmas. General Cholmondeley made a point in especial of telling me so when we chanced to encounter one another in Winchester in March. He takes a particular interest in all who are connected with the Thirty-Third. Not that he dotes upon the Wesleys as a family. Far from it. It is that his great-grandmother was from Gloucester, where the regiment was first raised in the time of the late Queen Anne.”
“Yes, by the Earl of Huntingdon, in the Year Two. I have studied the history. I was unwell, Mama. That was unfortunate.”
He had not been able to express this other outrageous truth about himself: that he had loved riding cross-country – there had been nothing in the world to match it for sheer exhilaration - as much as he had hated hunting the fox. He had been well aware that the fox was the hated enemy in the lambing-fields and in the cook’s poultry yard and at the keepers’ hatcheries; but William had from a young age been of the view that if the fox must be killed, then he should be killed cleanly, with a single shot if possible, and not chased until he dropped from exhaustion, to be torn apart whilst yet living by a pack of baying slobbering hounds. But, he had known, an opinion such as that would have been regarded as second only to Jacobinism – to heresy, even - in the social solar system to which his family was the local tutelary star.
“You have a good horse. The Earl was generous, considering that you are only his eleventh grandson.”
There had been more than a dozen Lawford first cousins scattered throughout Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset and the Midlands, courtesy of the sisters of the George, Charles and Henry of the previous generation, who were married to a collection of dull baronets and knights and one Earl in Shropshire and another in Bedfordshire and a gaggle of minor squirelings in other benighted counties, and God knew how many more of the second and third and removed variety; William had never shown much interest in them, nor they in him. I wish he could have extended his generosity to a commission in one of the cavalry regiments, had been his thought, to that - the memory of how splendid it was to ride like the wind over field and hill, leaping ditches and soaring over hedges, still fresh in his thoughts; but he had put it from his mind. He had owed his commission in King George’s unglamorous but solid Havercakes, alternatively known as The Pattern because of their all-round excellence, to the generosity of Uncle Hector, a sterling man, a proper gentleman, who had done that thing for him because of the love and regard which he had borne towards his sister Harriet in despite of all; to whom William had addressed his next remark.
“Audax is a fine animal, Mama. I shall ride him more often - although I shall soon have to say farewell to him for a long while – forever, I fear. I cannot take him with me on such a long voyage, to a fierce foreign climate, without the chance of fresh fodder or the promise of exercise for many months. And he is not trained to war. Perhaps it would be better if the Viscount were to agree to sell him for me. It is desirable, it seems to me, that Audax should learn to love a new master now – more to be wished for than that he should be left orphan alone in the stables here, no matter how well Weston takes care of him.”
“And what about the reading and music and your other sedentary pursuits? You would eschew those?”
“If you mean to include sketching? Is the Viscount concerned about that too? For the avoidance of doubt I certainly do not mean to abandon music and reading, nor drawing neither!”
“Drawing and music are fine accomplishments - drawing in particular is useful, in one who is about to travel. The Viscount is not pleased with your recent choices of subjects however. Why do not you depict the house and grounds and our people as you used? These days you are forever in the kitchen garden drawing lowly weeds – “
“Herbs, Mama – “
“ – and conversing with that red-headed boy with whom I saw you speaking after church just now. Red-haired persons are generally to be avoided, William. It is as the Doctrine of Signs sets forth to us. My nurse taught me that when I was five years old, how Nature herself teaches and warns us of what is useful and what is dangerous. Red hair means that a person is hot-headed and ruled by their passions, especially if they be of the common sort.”
“Mama, really - !”
“Judas the traitor was red-haired, and so was Mary Magdalene the - ”
“So the painterly lackeys of the Church of Rome would have us believe,” he had cut in, before she could articulate the proscribed word. Sometimes – and increasingly, as she had grown older - Mama had demonstrated a tendency to say indelicate things in public, and he had become practised at turning her flank before she could let slip the indecency. He had suspected the disinhibiting effect of the laudanum. “Thank you for your advice, Mama. I shall bear in mind all that you have said.”
William had taken very great care not to go away with the fairies, and to hang instead upon the Viscount’s every word throughout the typically joyless family Sunday luncheon of oxtail soup the colour of dysentery (O God! Flanders!) followed by cabbage the consistency of which suggested that it had been set to boil upon the May Eve just gone by, potatoes which were so thoroughly done that they had almost melted and resolved themselves into a dew, and elderly boiled mutton of the toughness of the leather of a ploughman’s boots, all without even a vinegar mint sauce to mitigate the horror. This had been followed by a disconsolate monosyllabub, woe made manifest as it were, which had apparently been formulated upon the principle of inducing terminal melancholia in the unfortunate diners (it had seemed that Cook still had yet to be spoken to) (5). William was certain that he must have been visibly nervous throughout the ordeal as well as clearly entirely without appetite; afterwards, the Viscount Petersfield had retired to his study (most likely, William decided, to peruse his collection of erotic etchings – years ago, when the Viscount had been away in London for a few days, Charles had found them and had shared them with his brothers with horrid gleefulness - William had been just at the right age to be shocked and repelled rather than titillated – indeed, he had sometimes wondered since whether his problems regarding the breeches department could be at least partly attributed to that traumatic experience) and Lady Petersfield had fallen asleep upon the sofa in the drawing-room with her pug Mr Johnson spread-eagled in her ample lap – she had once been a slender and attractive young woman, as the portrait made upon the occasion of her marriage (by no less a painter than Allan Ramsay) in the Long Gallery testified; and even in the Gainsborough family portrait which hung on the wall of the first landing of the staircase, made when William had been eighteen months old in the summer of 1778, she had yet been handsome enough; but following his birth she had become given to eating for consolation and then falling asleep - as was her habit on a Sunday afternoon; so he had silently left the room and quitted the house, and had remembered to do as Mark had advised and had approached, from the rear and through the small area of woodland, the small tied cottage which the Lucases had inhabited. Whilst still amongst the trees he had seen Mark in the small neatly-kept and pretty garden, which was in its full summer panoply and gay with Redcoat-scarlet poppies and brilliant cornflowers of a blue like to that of some of the uniforms of the French which he remembered from Flanders; roses of all kinds, some set to climb trellises; mock-orange, peonies and larkspurs and fox-gloves already half-spent, all the fair flowers of the season, and fragrant-blossomed shrubs. A row of half-grown hollyhocks had stood picquet by the gate, stretching themselves little by little towards the sun, as if eager for high summer’s coming campaign, and glory. The folk of the swallows and martins had darted in and out of the spaces beneath the eaves of the small thatched dwelling where they had made their mud-and-spittle shelters, their cottages of clay and straw, just as the human people of Hampshire and Dorset made theirs - and swifts had screamed in their early summer ecstasy in the blue, blue cloudless sky far above his head.
Mark had been keeping watch for him under pretence of tending the roses, and catching sight of him he had now signalled that all was clear; so William had left the cover of the cool green shade of the woods, and, stepping out into the bright light and heat of the sun, had advanced, rapidly covering the fifty yards or so of open ground in the smart style in which he had been used to do, when he had been with the 33rd - but not running, which would have looked very odd if anyone other than Mark had chanced to be watching him (and as it happened, someone else had been watching him - a spy amongst the trees – notwithstanding Mark’s warning he had been so careless and preoccupied with the thought of being with Mark that he had not been aware that he had in fact been followed) and had gone after Mark as he had slipped inside the house. Mark had closed and locked the door.
Once his vision had adjusted to the conditions within the cottage’s dark interior, William had seen that he was in a small but very well-kept kitchen bright with gleaming copper. In a corner had stood Mark’s bass viol in its oiled canvas bag. Mark had seen him looking at it.
“It was Father’s,” he had said. “He had it from his grandfather, who’d had it from his father. It was a true leg-viol once, with frets and a couple of extra strings; but at some time it was altered, so it’s more like a ‘cello now. Father used to call it the bastard viol, notwithstanding he was very fond of it. Mother used to tell him that that wasn’t very polite.”
“I suppose it wasn’t. It seems a shame – that it’s been altered.”
“Bass viol was part of a consort of such instruments, sir, in olden times. It had its smaller companions. How this came into the family I know not, but it came alone. Not much use on its own, unless you want to play solo for ever.”
“Like my brother Francis.”
“Aye, sir, I remember you telling me. Anyway, I daresay they changed it to make it useful again, so it could have a part in a rag-tag band like ours at church. What they call a broken consort, I do believe.”
“I’d often wondered about it when I’ve seen you with it at service – and before, when your father - I could never fully make out quite what it was. I assumed it was old – inherited – from the last century, even. The shape – more angular at certain of its points than a violoncello of today. I’ve seen it has been furnished with a terminal spike. That’s novel.”
“End-pin, sir, is what it’s called. It makes it easier to play it. You don’t have to grip it so tightly with your knees.”
“Oh! You play it well, Mark.”
“I saw away, sir,” Mark had said, blushing; “saw away, as well as I can. But not half so well as Father used to do. Do you play?”
“Keyboard.”
“I thought you might. Your fingers…”
“My fingers?”
“They are very fair – pale and slender. More apt to coax harmony from an instrument of wood and wire than to wield a sword in the midst of discordant battle, I have often thought.”
A deal table, scrubbed until it was almost white, had filled most of the space in the middle of the kitchen. Four sturdy plain chairs had stood about it. A great bunch of lavender and another of rosemary had been set down upon it. The scent of the herbs had filled the room.
“For Mother,” Mark had said, by way of explanation. “For the linen-store. And she makes soap. She does so love lavender and rosemary. She took a great bunch of each when she went to Gosport on Friday, for Uncle John.”
In a corner meanwhile a graceful green-eyed ginger cat had been lapping at a bowl of water which had been set for it on the worn, uneven but spotless flags. The cat had looked up at William when he had entered. Now it had come to wind itself ingratiatingly about his ankles, mewing the while, so he had crouched down to pet it.
“That’s Rufus,” Mark had said.
“He’s very handsome. Is he a good mouser?”
“Of great renown, sir. He was Martha’s cat really. She had him from a kitten. But when she went into service down at Fareham seven years last Michaelmas he latched on to me instead. And now it looks like he’s taken a real shine to you, sir.”
“You are a good cat, Rufus,” William had told the cat. “You slay your master’s enemies. You do your duty. Well done. Extra cream ration for your company tonight, and a mention in the General’s despatch. Carry on, Captain Rufus.”
Then he had stood to face Mark.
“So, Mark, why did you ask me to call this afternoon?”
“Well, sir,” Mark had said, smiling – head slightly to one side, and lowered, as he had looked up at him in that winning way he had had, through his long lashes - utterly irresistible. “I’d put the kettle on to boil, if you like; but I hadn’t really had it in mind to invite you here just to take tea.”
“Your plain meaning, Mark?” he had said, his breathing suddenly coming hard.
“You’re welcome to step up the stairs, sir.”
And so he had stepped up the stairs after Mark, who had led the way to a small bed-chamber with a low ceiling, the dark beams exposed. The open casement had overlooked the bright, pretty summer garden where the scarlet poppies and the royal-blue cornflowers had stood together in the beds, fraternising as the soldiers of the British and French regiments had been known to do at times. The window had admitted the heady scent of roses, and a little sunlight; but a deep shade had been in possession of the room itself. The coverings of the bed were snowy white and scented with lavender, which was all the more intensely fragrant for the heat of the day. It had been his parents’ chamber, Mark had told him, but nowadays Mother found the stairs difficult. It was her heart. She took tincture of fox-glove for it. She now had the box-bed in the kitchen, in which he and Martha had slept together as children.
“We were twins, as you know, sir,” he had said, by way of explanation. “Mother meant me to sleep in the truckle, once we turned ten.” But before that milestone, they had been found one morning, innocently asleep in each other’s arms, and so the separation had come earlier. “But our first night apart, Martha cried.” Martha, the elder twin, had cried the next night, too, and the one after that. After a week of it, Father had said, ‘Let the maid have the lad back, Mother. They’re more than just brother and sister. They grew together like peas in a pod in your belly all those months. And they won’t have each other for much longer, I don’t doubt. Where’s the harm?” So Mother had relented. They had finally parted at the age of twelve, when Martha had gone into service in the big house at Farnham. Mrs Lucas, later, would sigh and say that they should have sent the boy to sea with his uncle Brendan, (6) a maintopman of the larboard watch in His Majesty’s Ship Agamemnon – Nelson’s ship from ’93! - the old Eggs-and-Bacon, third-rate, 64 - and kept the maid at home.
It had been a hot day for early June with little in the way of a breeze inside the cottage notwithstanding the open windows, although a thin white cotton curtain had fluttered a very little at the casement. The slight movement had caught William’s attention; startled, he had flinched slightly, as if from the tail of his eye he had had sight of an enemy skirmisher flitting amongst the trees of a copse at the side of a road.
“Shall I draw it to, sir?” Mark had said, noting his nervousness, stepping to the window; an action which was duly noted by the spy in the woods, who had now been watching the cottage intently since he had seen William slip inside it ten minutes earlier.
“No – no – it is very warm today,” William had said. He had not expected Mark to reply to his pointlessly bland observation, which, truth to tell, he had only made in order to disguise a sudden attack of nervousness. Chattering.
“If you’re hot, sir, why, there’s a cure for that.” Sitting down now upon the bed Mark had deftly slipped off his shoes and stockings and his waistcoat, and then his shirt and his breeches, and then had offered his hand, smiling. “Come, sir.”
“You appear more absent than usual this evening, if that is possible,” the Viscount had said to William at dinner. It had been on that day - a month before he had gone to his assignation with Mark at the Lucas’s cottage - the day of the bluebell hanger. With the lengthening of the hours of daylight as summer had approached they had now begun to eat their principal meal towards dusk. William had said nothing – his hand had simply halted in the air with the spoon midway between the soup-bowl and his mouth. He had looked apprehensively at the Viscount. “Whilst I was dressing, half an hour or so since,” the Viscount had gone on, in a conversational tone, “Hawthorne mentioned that he had seen you returning to the house a short while before, looking quite dishevelled – ‘all ahoo’, I believe was the phrase he used – Hawthorne being a former naval man, you will recall, and steward to a Captain Avery for many years, before he lost a foot at St Vincent in the Year Eighty - which is unlike you, William.”
“Sir?” William had ventured, gingerly, replacing the spoon in the bowl before his hand could begin to tremble, for he had feared what might be coming next.
“You customarily take such painstaking care with your appearance. One might aver that you are generally immaculately turned-out, almost to a fault. Some might even say missishly fastidious. Had you been swimming in the lake again, coming home a drowned mouse?”
“I have not done that since Dr Fazz told me to leave off, sir. I had been walking and sketching in the woods. I had a slight accident. I tripped and fell down a bank. I got a little banged about. It ended in a contretemps with a beech-tree. It rather knocked the stuffing out of me for a while. It did indeed cause me to appear greatly disarranged. I… I put myself to rights as soon as I could, once I had come home.”
“Was anyone with you?” the Viscount had said, dangerously smooth.
William had hesitated, very slightly, aware that there was a trap but not knowing how to avoid it. “No, sir.”
The Viscount had raised an eyebrow. “Hawthorne said he saw someone with you as you walked back through the Home Park,” he had said, with an air of satisfaction. “He said it looked like Mark Lucas. I doubt he was in error. One can hardly mistake Lucas. Hair like a bonfire. One supposes he must have had an Irish grandmother or something of that sort. You start, sir; you blush.”
“Oh - yes – Lucas was there.” As he had so often in his life, William had cursed his tendency to redden so easily. “I thought – I thought you meant, anyone from the house, sir, like Collins, or - ”
“Who is Mark Lucas?” the Viscountess had said, looking quizzically at William.
“The son of the late head gardener; the one before John Potter,” the Viscount had said, before William could formulate a reply. “He plays the bass viol in church, as his father used to do.”
“Oh – I recollect. The red-haired boy who was involved in that disagreement with the other gardener last year. Still, that turned out for the best, moving him into the pinery. We’ve never had such pineapples!”
There had been a note of forced gaiety in Lady Petersfield’s tone which had evidently grated upon the Viscount’s ears. He had dealt his wife a look of withering contempt, of which, happily, she had been oblivious, as she had already been busily focussing her attention once again upon the contents of her soup-bowl. William had fixed his gaze meanwhile upon the over-large, and to his mind vulgar, silver-gilt epergne which had stood in the centre of the dining table.
“I should not describe a loud, unseemly and potentially violent public quarrel between two outdoor servants in the presence of the Earl and Countess of Winchester as a disagreement,” the Viscount had said then, dangerously quiet. Then, turning again to William, he had said: “How so?”
William had started visibly.
“Sir?”
“I regret that I appear to have interrupted you in your examination of that fine piece,” the Viscount had said, with freezing sarcasm. “I see that you are a connoisseur of such exquisite objects. However, I asked you just now how it came about that you were seen in the company of Mark Lucas.”
William made himself think very carefully for the space of perhaps three seconds.
“He had finished his work for the day, sir, its being Saturday,” he said (7). “He had seen that I had my drawing things with me, when I was setting off, in the afternoon.”
“The way to Durford Wood does not lie through the kitchen-garden.”
“I’d been sketching there. In the kitchen garden, sir. Lucas had been in the hot-house and was on his way home to the cottage which he shares with his mother. He wished me a good afternoon, and asked me if I required his assistance as far as the house – he had observed earlier in the day that I had appeared a little fatigued. I said that I was quite well, and that I meant to go to the wood and walk there for a time, with my sketching things, hoping to catch the late afternoon light, before I returned to the house. Lucas was at once interested, and asked if he might accompany me. He’s been quite - taken - with seeing – he had not seen anyone sketching before I started to take an interest in how they grow the things for the table. He had never seen it done. He has copied botanical drawings from books, to practise the skill of depicting flora, but he had not seen how one draws from life, from the living plant, until I began to make my visits to the kitchen garden.”
“William, I do not think – “ the Viscountess had begun.
“So I said that he was welcome to walk with me. We came to a hanger above the river, and that was where I suffered my mishap. I was startled by a bird, and tripped on a tussock of grass, and I fell, and could not stop tumbling downhill, for the slope was very steep. After I had hit the tree,” he had gone on, with determination, as Mama had seemed inclined to interrupt him again with her admonitions, “I was somewhat stunned, as you will appreciate, sir. I was dazed, hardly knew where was up or where was down. Lucas came to my assistance - he kept me from falling into the river, which was deep and fast-flowing at that spot. It was as well he was there.”
“ – especially if he’s Irish,” Mama had continued, heedlessly and bizarrely. “For all we know he could be plotting to murder us in our beds. Look what’s been happening in County Wexford.” Something in her tone had made William think, ‘here it comes’. And then here at had come. “The rebels have been putting the heads of the Militiamen on spikes! I do look at the newspapers, you know, for all you men think I only concern myself with ribbons and gossip.”
‘And that damn pug,’ he had heard, in his inward ear, in Charles’s voice.
That had been Charles’s invariable contribution to a ritual exchange which they had had many times at dinner over the years. In the Viscount’s family the bandying of such predictable threadbare inanities had, for as long as William had been able to remember, passed as a substitute for conversation. He had suddenly, with a pang of surprise, felt sorry, then, for his mother, for many years the only woman in a family of men, all of whom had to some extent experienced difficulty in functioning to a tolerable degree as adult males were supposed to do, and thus very poor company for members of the female sex. William had then considered briefly family meals of the past, when his brothers had been at home. Charles’s traditional contribution he had already rehearsed to himself. After Charles had said his tiresome piece about Mr Johnson, by custom it had next been the turn of Henry, blandly pleasant, intellectually bright but nonetheless devastatingly dull, boring them rigid with descriptions of the latest additions to his beloved collection of geological specimens: becoming the Viscount unexpectedly upon the shocking death of Charles in 1809, and shortly after that, the Earl, following two further sudden deaths, far from causing him to feel that he had hit life’s jackpot, had merely served instead to irritate him, so far as William would ever be able to make out: for the duties which had gone with the title had kept Henry in London for much of the year, in exile from his cabinets-full of fascinating rocks in the house at Cannock; and he had missed his life in Chambers, and the absorbing debating of obscure points of law with his colleagues at Inn dinners. Even dear Francis, whose love of music had possibly surpassed William’s own, had otherwise only ever truly been interested in native British orchids (8). William had recalled how once many years ago, when Francis had been about thirteen years old he had pulled a pencil from his pocket during dinner and, to illustrate a point of his monologue, had proceeded to sketch a diagram of herminium monorchis upon the tablecloth, carried away as he had been by his enthusiastic botanising, startling Mama from her habitual lethargy and causing the Viscount to order him angrily from the room. This had been the only occasion upon which William had been able to recall the Viscount expressing displeasure at Francis for something which he had done (quite possibly it had also been one of the few occasions upon which the Viscount had demonstrated awareness of his existence, Francis at the time being only the second Spare). Francis had later developed a professional interest in God, as was of course only fitting, but William had always suspected that the Lord would always come a poor third to the viol and the orchids. Then William had considered again the depressing thought that, notwithstanding his physical absence upon this occasion, Charles seemed nonetheless to have taken up rent-free residence in his head. He had wondered if he would ever be able to evict him.
“Mama, he isn’t Irish - !” William had said at last, figuratively crossing his fingers, for he had known full well that Mark had had an uncle called Brendan who had been a sailor in one of His Majesty’s ships. One could hardly have an uncle called Brendan and not have some kind of Irish connection, he had thought, but he had not been going to say so in the current climate. … “at least, I do not think he can be - and I am sure that he has no intention of murdering us,” William had said, trying not to let his exasperation with his mother’s single-minded pursuit of inanity become apparent. He had been fond of her, he had supposed; but nonetheless he had found her invincible ignorance and rank vapidity and vagueness mightily irritating, and difficult to endure at times. “From what I have been able to ascertain, he very much enjoys his work in the kitchen garden and hothouse, and besides, he has his mother to maintain, and a sister in service not far distant, and so has a particular interest in our continuing to reside here. Un-murdered.”
A chill silence had descended. Eventually the Viscount had said,
“It was indeed fortunate that Lucas was there - if ‘fortune’ it was. Until you are quite well you should certainly not go about alone out of doors.”
“I had better be well, sir. I am to sail for India in July, as you know, as you have now kindly arranged my passage on the Néreide frigate, for which I am exceeding grateful. I am well.”
The Viscount had regarded him, cold and unsmiling as ever as he subjected him to silent close scrutiny. In the meantime William had struggled to sustain the Viscount’s searching gaze without flinching. He had barely succeeded in doing so.
“I am not quite persuaded that that is the case,” the Viscount had said, eventually, in such as way as to leave William uncomfortably in doubt regarding precisely to what he had been referring – to William’s state of health? Or had he reverted to the matter of the presence, serendipitous or otherwise, of Mark Lucas, accompanying him upon his woodland stroll? “You said yourself barely three minutes since that Lucas had noticed that you were not yourself. It is better not to walk alone in the wood in any case. These times in which we live are dismaying, distressed, troubled, out of joint. There are desperate men roaming the countryside, especially in the vicinity of Petersfield, so close as it is to Portsmouth and Southampton and to the various military depots in Winchester and elsewhere hereabouts, mere tens of miles from the Channel. Deserters from both the Army and the Navy. Poachers. Gypsies. Masterless men. Criminals of all stripes. Upon the next occasion you venture into the wood, William, take Collins or Davis with you - a footman, as befits your position. And keep to the paths. Do not roam amongst the underbrush. In fact, it would be better still were you to take one of the keepers also, as they know where the traps are set (9). Do not go alone with Mark Lucas,” the Viscount had added, now in a tone of quiet menace which had made the hairs rise on William’s neck, although for what reason he could not rightly determine.
“Sir?”
“A gardener is no meet companion for you. His Majesty’s Ships and Regiments of Foot are full of peasants, and rogues of all kinds, the sweepings of both town and country, and once returned to your Battalion you will be unable to avoid such low company – for they are even making officers of them these days, if the reports be true – but whilst you remain beneath this roof you will not disgrace it on account of your choice of associates. You will remember your station. Madam,“ the Viscount had gone on, now addressing the Viscountess, “this oxtail soup – if that is what is indeed supposed to be - is fit only for the swine-trough. You will please speak to Cook. I am certain I have said so before.”
“You might speak to her yourself,” Lady Petersfield had said, “if it offends you so. I find no fault with it.”
“I do! It is the veriest swill! And that is your business! To oversee the running of this house in a manner which best facilitates the comfort and convenience of your husband! Moreover, concerning the Irish, collect: as I have had cause to remind you upon numerous occasions across the last twenty years and more – my God, is it really so long as that? - kindly never in my hearing prate of the Irish!”
Notes
1. George Farquhar. Aimwell in The Beaux’ Stratagem. 1707.
2.William seems to be misremembering here. The poem (Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794) is actually called The Sick Rose and is a metaphor for the loss of innocence.
3.Sometimes difficult to distinguish from brain-death (especially in the case of the Viscountess).
4.If someone was lauded for being ‘pious but without enthusiasm’ it meant that, whilst they demonstrated proper religious sentiment (according to the polite tenets of the Church of England) they were not fanatical about it.
5.Sugar from the Barbados plantation, obviously, but the cream was probably off.
6.Brendan Connelly, brother of Mark Lucas’s mother, met his end at Trafalgar. He got in the way of a recoiling 18 pounder, to which he had been seconded after most of its original crew had already become casualties. Its breeching-rope had been severed by chain-shot, and it had careered across the upper gun-deck, maiming several of his colleagues and killing him outright.
7. 5th May 1798 fell upon a Saturday. The outdoor servants at Durford were by long tradition granted a Saturday half-holiday beginning at 12 noon.
8. Francis Lawford was later to write a book treating of Orchids Native to the British Isles, illustrated by himself. It was well-received upon publication in 1827 and was for many years thereafter considered by serious botanists to be the definitive work upon the subject. However, Francis never published so much as a single volume of sermons, or indeed any work of a theological nature.
9.The Viscount is here, naturally, referring to those set for poachers.
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