Man Of War

My dearest Elizabeth, I am unused to expressing such thoughts, which fact I am joyously pleased to admit to you, and lest you should be in any doubt as to my feelings I enclose with this a page from a book of verse which I have long had in my sailing library, which I have long admired though yet been uncertain of its truth, until now when I do read it with, so to speak, the scales fallen from my eyes, though in its alluding to sword, horse and shield it is perhaps more properly the domain of your most excellent and gallant brother! For my part, it would read instead of oak and sail and gun, though these be neither so poetic nor chivalric. I would write of blustering wind or swallowing wave, and these words you will surely recognize from the poet’s other work of parting – of going beyond the seas, indeed, which would be the more appropriate were it not to speak so much of the Eternal . . .

He went to the quarter gallery to fetch his razor, took the book of verse from the trough next to his cot, and cut the page very neatly from his treasured Lucasta:

TELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind,

That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind

To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,

The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace

A sword, a horse, a shield.Yet this inconstancy is such

As thou too shalt adore;

I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

He fastened it to the other sheets with blue tape, which he cut from his sea coat, and signed the letter Your Devoted Sposino.

Then he called for Flowerdew to chill thoroughly a case of champagne.

XIV

INFLUENCE

London, 7 May 1828

It was a warm afternoon when they returned to the United Service Club, where all the windows were thrown open and the noise of the streets intruded. Nevertheless, Hervey was able to hear well enough the discontented voices of a post-prandial knot of members at the further end of the smoking room. He and Fairbrother fell silent as they cocked their ears to the agitated conversation . . .

‘The Duke of Wellington will have nothing of it, I tell you!’

‘The duke will have no choice in the matter, for he’s sold out to those damned Canningites!’

‘He’ll never have truck with Emancipation: votes for Catholics? – Ireland’d be ungovernable!’

‘Ireland’ll be ungovernable without Emancipation!’

‘No need to worry about the Irish, sir! Peel and that constabulary of his have got them by the hip – stouthearted fellows!’

‘He’ll have a constabulary here, too; you mark my words!’

‘A police in London? Nonsense, sir!’

‘Well I for one would cheer him in it: a police would get our men off the streets at least.’

‘You’d rather see a police, and all the devil that goes with it, instead of honest men in red? Shame, sir! We fought Robespierre to have none of it, by gad!’

‘I don’t trust Huskisson. It’s he that’ll be the ruin of the country. Free trade – bah! He’d bankrupt every farmer on a principle.’

‘The fellah’s a bounder. So fat he couldn’t break into double time to save his life!’

‘It’s that damned little Lord Cupid who’ll see us ruined. Taking country seats in parliament and giving them instead to the cities! Was at Harrow with ’im, and I tell you, sir, Palmerston’d sell this country to the dogs!’

Fairbrother took a sip of his coffee, made to raise his newspaper, and leaned forward to speak confidentially. ‘The Duke of Wellington, I fancy, is in for another hard pounding!’

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ replied Hervey, sotto voce and with a ruing smile. ‘One must marvel at his sense of duty, laying aside military honours to enter into such a bear-pit!’