Georgiana mistook his manner for displeasure that his generosity and thoughtfulness had been ill received. 'I am sorry, Papa. I did not wish to display ingratitude, only that . . . I am sure a grammar box would serve always.'
He smiled at her, benignly. 'No; evidently I underestimated your aunt's address in teaching, and your own in learning. Better, I think, that we save the guinea.'
They browsed instead among the titles in that part of the shop set aside for 'the young entry', settling on Fables in Monosyllables, also by Mrs Teachwell. Hervey felt that Kezia's recommendation of the author boded well, and so they each left the shop contented, if for different reasons.
They were not long at tea when Elizabeth returned, but accompanied. Hervey rose, and a shade awkwardly.
'Brother,' she began boldly. 'May I present Major Heinrici.'
Hervey bristled: Elizabeth had humbugged him. Yet the honour required of one soldier to another demanded nothing less than civility. He bowed. 'Major Heinrici.'
Major Baron (more properly, Freiherr) von Heinrici zu Gehrden was ten years Hervey's senior, but an inch or so shorter. He braced himself in military fashion (though he had not served with the colours in some time) and returned the bow. 'Colonel Hervey.' The accent was apparent but not pronounced.
There was a moment's awkwardness, when no one spoke.
'May we join you, brother?' asked Elizabeth, looking away from him and at Georgiana.
Hervey cleared his throat. 'By all means.' He nodded to one of the Grillon's waiters.
They sat down.
'Have you had an instructive day, Georgiana?'
Georgiana's face lit up. 'Oh, yes indeed, Aunt Elizabeth. Papa told me all about a lion which had escaped at Hounslow, and how he captured it, and so we have been to see more lions.'
'Indeed?'
Hervey cleared his throat again. 'It was not I who caught the lion but Lord Holderness.'
'I am sure you would have caught the lion, Matthew, if Lord Holderness had not first done so.'
He was not entirely sure if his sister teased or not. He chose to ignore the remark. 'We have had a most enlightening day: lions carved out of stone, lions stuffed, and lions living – or rather, one lion living.'
'Though it was only a female lion,' added Georgiana, with just a measure of disappointment.
Major Heinrici leaned towards her, and with a smile that even Hervey was forced to recognize as most genuinely kind, said in a conspiratorial voice, 'But, meine gnädige Fraülein, it is the lioness who hunts!'
Georgiana returned the smile, and with obvious warmth.
Hervey saw. 'Indeed,' he tried, allowing himself a smile too. 'I should not wish to choose between the lion and the lioness.'
Tea was brought, and Elizabeth busied herself thankfully in directing the waiter.
'When do you return to the Cape Colony, Herr Colonel?' asked Heinrici, easily, as he reached for a piece of gingerbread.
Hervey was still uncomfortable with the degree of intimacy which Elizabeth had contrived, yet he could not show it. And besides, it was difficult not to be civil to so patently agreeable a man as Heinrici; especially when he knew him to have been an officer of cavalry in the King's German Legion. 'At the end of next week. There is a steamship leaving Gravesend.'
'And how long is the passage?'
'It depends of course on the weather, but nothing in excess of eight weeks – barring calamity.' He realized he should not perhaps have used the word calamity, and he looked slightly anxiously at Georgiana and Elizabeth. But neither of them appeared troubled.
'Matthew, when we are married, Major Heinrici is to take me to Paris and then to Brussels, and thence to Hanover to see his people, and as we travel to Brussels we shall visit the battlefield at Waterloo.'
Hervey shifted in his chair. Before he could say anything, Georgiana spoke her mind.
'Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, how I too should like to see the battlefield at Waterloo! I should find it so much easier to imagine Papa's doings that day. And of course Major Heinrici's!'
Hervey was now thoroughly discomfited. Whether or not mention of the battle was yet another ploy on his sister's behalf he could not tell, but the appeal to the fellowship of Waterloo was always a powerful one. How ran the canteen ditty?
Were you, too, at Waterloo?
'Tis no matter what you do,
If you were at Waterloo.
It was not the absolute truth, of course, but many a flogging had been commuted when a man's record of service was read out, and the words 'present at Waterloo'. And many a magistrate had passed a lighter sentence on some beggar in red who wore his Waterloo medal in court. Yes, the fellowship of Waterloo was a powerful one. As, too, was the fellowship of 'the yellow circle', which extended even into the enemy's lines. But Hervey knew also that Heinrici was not just any cavalry: he was of that elect, a light dragoon – and a light dragoon of the King's German Legion. That admirable corps of men from the electorate of Hanover, the late King's German realm, had made their way to England when Bonaparte overran the Rhineland. He began to feel himself ashamed.
'If only you might come too, Papa!'
That did it. He cleared his throat, intending, civilly, to take his leave.
But Georgiana had not quite finished. 'You have never said, Major Heinrici: did you see Papa that day?' And then she turned to her father. 'And you, Papa: did you see Major Heinrici?'
Heinrici smiled. 'I saw him, yes, but I did not know it was he, not until your aunt told me of what he did. You see, my dear, your father's regiment came into the middle of the field, where my own corps was, towards the end of the battle, and they lost a good many of their officers, so that when it came the time to charge, your father was in command of them – and he but a cornet! I remember their charge most well, and seeing the officer who led them.'
Georgiana looked at her aunt, and then at her father. 'Papa, Aunt Elizabeth has not told me this. It is true?'
Hervey raised an eyebrow, and smiled very slightly. 'It is.'
'And did you see Major Heinrici?'
'I saw his brigade – General Dornberg's.'
'Ach, ja! Liebe Willy! What a man was he!'
Hervey was now warmed to his subject. 'I rather fancy that we in Lord Vyvyan's brigade had an easier time of it on the left flank, for when we moved to the centre towards evening, the sight of Dornberg's brigade, and so many others, filled us with foreboding. I never saw such a thing, so many lying dead about the place, and those still afoot or astride as black as their boots!'
'Black, Papa?'
'From the powder smoke.'
'And you recall the advance of the Imperial Guard, Hervey,' added Heinrici, enthusiastically. 'And how your Guards beat them off, and then the Duke of Wellington raising his hat and beckoning the whole line to advance. Quelle affaire!'