Free A Regimental Affair by Allan Mallinson Page A

there’s the mark of the man full-grown!’
    Hervey looked at him quizzically. The snow-white hair and weathered face, deep-grooved and sun-dried, spoke of age, but for the rest there was nothing that revealed the passing of his many years. Such had been the reward – as well as riches – for Coates’s soldierly virtue and sober living.
    ‘I’ve observed it many times – the urge to see a foal when a man’s taken from a horse a little too much.’
    Hervey made a sort of frown, enough to acknowledge the sentiment.
    ‘Do you have a stallion in mind?’
    Hervey shook his head. ‘More an idea of the horse I want from the foal. About Jessye’s height – half a hand higher, perhaps, but no more.’
    ‘And a bit more blood?’ suggested Coates, nodding his head as if he could see the reasoning. ‘Jessye not quite as fast as you’d care?’
    ‘She was never outrun in the field,’ said Hervey quickly, as if to make amends for disloyalty.
    ‘In which case,’ replied Coates, looking purposely bemused, ‘you want another Jessye!’
    Hervey smiled.
    ‘Have you seen Lord Bath’s improvement stallion?’
    ‘No, I’ve not. To tell you the truth, Dan, I’ve called on the marquess, but he’s much occupied by affairs in parliament. He went to London at the beginning of the week and I haven’t been to the house since.’
    ‘When does Henrietta come – Friday you said?’
    ‘Yes. That is what the express said. But Derbyshire is some way distant, and I don’t suppose the roads at this time will have been much mended.’
    Coates clapped an arm on his shoulder. ‘I would dare any odds that yon carriage will move like a fly coach. Besides that, most of the turnpikes’ve been macadamized while you’ve been away. In any case, that young lady would ride astride if she thought she could be here the sooner!’
    Hervey smiled again. ‘How can you be so sure?’
    Coates was not sporting with him, though. ‘I didn’t tell, did I? She came to Drove Farm to ask me all I knew of the Indies, and how long I thought you might be gone.’
    ‘When was this?’ pressed Hervey, gratified yet surprised that Henrietta could have shown so much eagerness.
    ‘Just after she came back from France. Oh, a great occasion it was – a barouche with the Bath arms in my drive!’
    Hervey made a little ‘oh’ of disappointment. ‘But that was the better part of two years ago.’
    ‘Matthew Hervey,’ sighed Coates, clapping his shoulder again. ‘I ’ave been on this earth long enough to recognize certain things when I see them. And, I may tell you, the look in that yon lady’s eyes was not going to go absent in the space of two years. She made me promise to let her know the instant I’d any knowledge of you.
And
she reminded me of it when last I saw her – at the Michaelmas rents.’
    Hervey could have heard nothing so heartening. Michaelmas was only six months ago. ‘I gave the lodge-keeper a half-sovereign to let me know within a quarter-hour of her carriage arriving – by whichever gate!’
    ‘If I was you I’d sit at the picket post myself from mid-morning o’ Friday,’ said Coates, his smile as wry as if he were still the young dragoon.
    Hervey was stung. ‘Dan, don’t suppose that’s not my instinct too. I’d be riding the Fosse Way this minute if I could be sure it’s how she’d come. But it would be indecent – surely? – not to allow her a few moments to herself before receiving me.’
    To Hervey’s further dismay, Coates laughed. ‘Oh, don’t mistake me, Matthew. I stand in admiration of such propriety. It’s just that our worlds have been so different. Margaret tramped from one end of Devon to the other when she got news that the regiment was back from America.’
    Hervey had never known Margaret Coates. But what he had heard over the years made the revelation less remarkable than it might have been. Nevertheless, Coates’s point was well made, and he envied the freedom for so ardent an advance. ‘Dan, I