Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [114]
“It is hardly likely,” Eliza, said. “One surmises that Lieutenant Hearst spoke from guilty rage.”
“However it was, others more objective could prove the truth of neither assertion; the Lieutenant and his adversary had been playing long into the night, and had been deserted by their fellows; and no one had seen the cards the other alleged to have been in Lieutenant Hearst's coat-sleeve.”
“Was no one prepared to vouch for him before his company?”
“I fear that they had all suffered too much at his hands; and some may have shared the stranger's suspicion,” Colonel Buchanan replied shortly. “It ended as all such affairs must and inevitably do end—with Lieutenant Hearst defending his honour in a pistol duel with the gentleman.”
With a start, I remembered Fanny Delahoussaye's words at Isobel's ball, an evening that might have been an age ago; the Lieutenant, she said, was arrived from St. James having recently killed a man in a duel. The affairs of officers are the most romantic, she had prattled, or some nonsense to that effect.
“They met at dawn, not far from the barracks here in St. James, and Lieutenant Hearst succeeded in dispatching his accuser—which may have satisfied him, but only added to his unfortunate reputation. The poor fellow he killed was to have been wed at Christmas.”
There was a brief silence as Eliza and I took all this in; but keenly aware of my purpose I shook myself into awareness and sought once more the Colonel's gaze. “And this debacle has ruined the Lieutenant's standing in the cavalry?”
“An affair of honour is a dubious thing,” the Colonel told us, with a sharply exhaled breath and another impatient gesture. “The law would call it murder. But among military men, nothing is prized so much as one's honour—it is beyond fortune, beyond birthright; it is become the essence of the man. A duel to the death has long been the established mode of satisfying outrages against one's reputation. Had this been the only blot on the Lieutenant's career, he might have survived it. But taken with his pressing debts, and the fact that others of his fellows have called him cardsharp in the aftermath of the duel, he is now under consideration for cashierment by his superiors.”
“Colonel Buchanan,” I said, summoning my courage, “forgive me for prying further in such a matter. But were the Lieutenant presently to satisfy his creditors, discharge his debts of honour among the company, and conduct himself in a manner more suited to a gentleman and a member of his corps, could his commission yet be saved?”
“I fear that little might save Lieutenant Hearst,” the Colonel replied, his eyes stern, “though women ever believe that love alone shall do it. I dearly hope, Miss Austen, that it is some other lady than yourself who has proved so susceptible to the rascal's charms. I should not like to see you lost to all reason.”
I cursed my ready tendency to blush as I replied. “I assure you, sir, that I am come on another's behalf, and must return with the heaviest of burdens—that of advising one in love to look no further for happiness in the Lieutenant's quarter. It is a burden I have gladly shared with the Countess.”
“Indeed,” Eliza said quickly, recollecting our supposed purpose for being there, and reaching for her reticule, “I must thank you, dear Colonel, for your readiness to disclose what may only be to the Lieutenant's detriment. Circumstances required that his character be better understood.”
“The decision of his superiors should even now have been reached,” the Colonel said, “and so you may be saved of your duty. For no young woman should wish to marry a man without fortune, career, or prospects—may he have twenty uncles recently dead.”
1. Cashierment was equivalent to a dishonorable discharge. Since officers’ commissions were purchased at great expense, particularly in a cavalry company connected to the Royal Household, to be cashiered represented a financial loss. A retiring soldier could sell his