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Hervey had also imagined some attachment forming with Elizabeth, for in John Keble’s letter to him (a most welcome poste restante in Paris) there was mention of quitting Oxford – and therefore its rule of celibacy – for his curacy in the Cotswolds. But it was evidently not so. Devoted to her father though Elizabeth was, there were evangelical sentiments in her which might in any case militate against such an alliance. She read Hannah More copiously, and had only recently declined a position out of Clapham with the Society for Returning Young Women to their Friends in the Country; not out of any qualmishness, but from a conviction that her father and mother had need of her.
    With their mother gone, Hervey thought he might change the subject. ‘How are your good works in the town, Elizabeth?’
    ‘Never in all our years at Horningsham has there been such distress,’ answered his sister solemnly. ‘The marquess has set in place a system of relief, but it does not extend beyond the estate, and so many were the calls on the parish last year that funds were exhausted before harvest time. Warminster Common is become more than ever a refuge for beggars and every kind of felon.’
    Hervey could easily believe it. At the time of his going to the Sixth it was known to be a fencing-crib for the three counties.
    ‘Gangs now maraud from there. They take the game, sometimes quite openly, at Longleat. Daniel Coates sat three times each week with the other magistrates last month, and still there is no end to the lawlessness. Father will not allow me to visit, though.’
    ‘And how should your being allowed to visit the common prevent this?’ Her brother frowned sceptically.
    ‘I do not for one minute think that it would. My concern is for the children who are being raised in that depravity. And Daniel Coates believes there should be a mission there too.’ Elizabeth knew this recommendation would turn her brother’s opinion.
    ‘I shall see Daniel this morning. He’s coming to look over Jessye.’
    ‘Do you know he is the owner of three brewing houses now?’
    ‘Which keep his bench well supplied with miscreants of a Monday, no doubt!’ joked Hervey.
    Elizabeth returned his smile, for she was not so much an evangelical as to be an advocate of temperance.
    Hervey was pleased, for with a smile her face became pretty, and he still entertained hopes of a husband in regimentals rather than clericals.
    ‘He is the only farmer hereabouts who has managed to keep all his labourers in work these past two years.’ Elizabeth said it with real pride, as if Coates were family. ‘He has not dismissed a single one. Indeed, he has even engaged some of the wretched Imber shepherds, so much in need of relief were they.’
    ‘Well, I’ll be very much interested to learn how he has been able,’ replied her brother. ‘For everything I read is of depression in that business.’
    She frowned. ‘It’s an ill thought that with peace there comes a fall in demand for the county’s wool. I hope we shall never come to be thankful for war as the means of providing for our working men.’
    ‘Let us hope not,’ he agreed. ‘Though I should sooner see sturdy men in a red coat – with the colours, that is – than have them without work. There are men in scarlet begging along every road from here to London.’
    ‘I can believe it, for there are several in Warminster, and a sorry sight it is too. They would at least be provided for in the army. And they would be under discipline. I confess I am sometimes a little afraid of them in the town now. And that was never so before.’ She poured him more tea and then for herself. ‘By the by, Matthew, do not take against Mr Keble for this business of Father’s. I truly believe there is not any guilt attached to him in this – if guilt, indeed, be the right notion.’
    ‘No,’ sighed Hervey. ‘I don’t suppose I should have been inclined to think Mr Keble guilty. How is he?’
    Elizabeth frowned