The Passage to India

by Allan Mallinson

  As indeed must the whole business of court martial have weighed with poor Brereton, 33 of whose 52 years had been given to the army, in which ‘he had acquired the reputation of being a trustworthy and meritorious officer’. Hervey had himself suffered field court martial, but that was a very trifling affair compared with one for so senior an officer as Brereton: a lieutenant-general, four major-generals, six colonels and four lieutenant-colonels sitting as the military jury; Dalbiac prosecuting – and the whole proceedings open to the public and reported freely by the press. Little wonder Brereton had found it intolerable.

  But to take his own life – a thing by common consent reserved for the final moment of capture by savages … Surely the balance of his mind had been greatly disturbed. Perhaps it had been so even before the riot began?

  Hervey steeled himself to read the conclusion. He was sure it would be ‘a calumny on a fine officer’; one ‘made scapegoat by those in authority’; whose ‘decency and moderation had been traduced by those who relieved him, for whatever motive’. It all boded very ill.

  Yet he was all astonishment:

  In the disastrous occurrences which led to the investigation into his conduct, the character of the officer suffered from the benevolence of the man. Deficient in the great military principle of decision, averse to the shedding of blood, and obliged to seek instructions from a magistracy anxious to shift the burden of responsibility for severe measures from their collective shoulders, he neither discerned with the requisite precision, nor acted with the promptitude which the exigency of the occasion demanded. The censure of those who were most bitter in their condemnation of him when living, extends no further, now that he has made his fearful and rash appeal from a tribunal of his fellow-creatures to the judgment-seat of God.

  In his private relations, his conduct was unimpeachable. He was distinguished by invariable kind-heartedness to all; and when his death was made known in the neighbourhood of his dwelling, a crowd of women and children, many of whom wept him as a benefactor, gathered to his threshold to mourn his loss. His liberality was the more estimable, as, with respect to fortune, he possessed but a small private independence.

  THE INQUEST.

  The inquest is not expected to be held until to-morrow, as, the event having occurred in Glocester-shire, it will be necessary to send to Berkeley, about 20 miles distant from Bristol, for Mr. Ellis, the county coroner.

  Deficient in the great military principle of decision, averse to the shedding of blood: could he have thought that any but a man under authority, having soldiers under him, might see it so simply, let alone state it so plainly? He shook his head, and sighed – and hoped that his sighing was not unworthy. He knew there’d be others breathing greater sighs of relief than he, for although no one might have wished it, it was a solution that many would quietly welcome. There would now be no appeals against verdict or sentence, no public campaigns one way or the other. Captain Warrington was to be court-martialled, yes; but that would be a straightforward enough affair. Brereton had both condemned himself and carried out sentence by his own action. It was all very neatly done.

  But those two daughters of tender years, now made fully orphan – they came before him almost as his own. He made to find paper and pen. He must write a letter at once to condole with someone, and a respectful note to the colonel of the Forty-ninth …

  ‘Is everything well, sir?’

  He hadn’t supposed he’d been observed. He certainly hoped his dismay hadn’t been.

  ‘Yes, Annie, perfectly well.’

  But he thought a word or two in elaboration might convince her more that it was.

  ‘Colonel Brereton, who was in command of the troops at Bristol before my arrival there, has taken his own life.’

  ‘Oh, sir.’

  ‘Dreadful, yes.’

  ‘What about his family, sir?’

  ‘He has none but two daughters, it seems. I’m sure there’ll be arrangements made. There always are. But a great sadness, certainly.’

  ‘Colonel Brereton was the man who you had to go to Bristol to speak for, wasn’t he, sir?’

  ‘Not so much for, Annie; I gave evidence to his court martial on what I saw.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Serjeant James told me about it …’

  She looked anxious suddenly.

  ‘There’s coffee, sir, just made, if you will. And I’ll be taking a tray up to Mrs Hervey, as soon as the doctor’s gone.’

  Hervey nodded, thought for a moment, then put down his pen. ‘Annie, I haven’t thanked you sufficiently for all you’ve done these past weeks. The work must have been very tiring for you. Indeed, I don’t think you have taken a full day’s rest in a month. You must have some respite.’

  He did not exaggerate. Annie had not had a day’s rest since the fateful evening. She’d been nurse and lady’s maid until Kezia’s own had been brought from Walden, she’d continued as Mrs James’s second, served at table, overseen the two other housemaids, and found a third when Elizabeth and Georgiana had visited. She’d been to see her mother in Osterley once, but only in the afternoon, and even then had been back by dark.

  ‘That’s not necessary, sir. I like to be at work.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’ (He himself might have said the same.) ‘How is your brother?’ he added brightly, to divert things to happier matters.

  ‘Oh, he’s very well, sir. He wrote home and said that his regiment’s bound for India. It set my mother’s nerves into an agitation, but she’s well about it now. We won’t see him for many years, though, I don’t suppose. I hope he’ll have leave before he goes and can come and see us. Or perhaps we’ll travel to Canterbury to see him. I’d like that.’

  Hervey nodded.

  ‘I’ll go and take Mrs Hervey her tray, then, sir. The doctor said I should, after a quarter of an hour.’

  ‘The doctor – I didn’t hear him come.’

  ‘Yes, sir, not long after you came in here. I’ll take the tray then, sir?’

  ‘Yes … yes, I’ll join Mrs Hervey presently.’

  His thoughts could now at least turn from Bristol, and happily. How that remarkable surgeon of his – physician, indeed; Medicinae Doctor Aberdonensis – was proved right. Or rather, had proved himself right, for not once had he let up in his regimen of daily observation, treatment and prescription. Kezia had gained strength and composure observable almost by the day, and, just as Milne had assured him it would – as much as any man of science might assure – her mind had regained equilibrium, so that there was about her now a calmness and equability that drew him to her more than mere duty.

  For the moment, though, there was a good fire in his hearth, and he would content himself until the tray was ready by gazing at it and drawing strength from contemplating the happier events of the past month. For despite all, they had kept a good Christmas – a very good Christmas. At Hounslow the day itself had met with all the customary observances – ‘gunfire’ at reveille brought to the barrack rooms in kettles by the serjeants; the troop horses turned away on the heath behind barracks until dusk; church parade – much abbreviated, at Hervey’s insistence, but with hearty carolling; the dragoons’ feast of roast pork in the riding school carved by the serjeant-majors and served by the officers; and evening stables with all ranks to the brush, followed by dinner at Heston with the half-dozen officers at duty still. Then there’d been three days of conviviality with Elizabeth and Georgiana, and a drive to Windsor, where they’d had the freedom of the park. He’d had a good morning’s sport at Osterley by invitation of Lord Jersey; and in the evenings, when his guests were none, he’d done a little work with the German manuscript. Indeed, he’d not passed through the barrack gates at Hounslow until the second of the new year – and not once fretted over it.

  ‘Ah, Milne: you come upon me by stealth. You’ll stay and lunch?’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel, but no. I thought that, since there’s no one abed in the infirmary, I’d take the opportunity to dine with an old friend at St G
eorge’s hospital. I’ve engaged a hackney.’

  ‘Of course. And, it was so very good to see Collins back at duty this morning. My compliments.’

  ‘In Collins’s case, I believe it was more a business of amusing the patient while Nature took its course. He has a strong constitution and an even stronger will – and a wife for whom any man would fight for his life.’

  Hervey blinked; Milne’s forthrightness could sometimes be startling. ‘Indeed. Quite.’

  ‘But I’ve told him not to expect immediate recovery of all his powers. Two weeks, three perhaps.’

  Hervey nodded. ‘And how do you find my wife this morning?’

  The surgeon looked thoughtful.

  ‘Come, a glass of madeira.’

  ‘Very well, thank you, Colonel.’

  He took a chair, as Hervey poured him a glass of his best Blandy’s.

  ‘She is, I think, quite remarkably well. I hesitate only because I’ve rarely seen so promising a recovery, and there’s always the chance of relapse. Her nursing has been exemplary; and the conditions could not have been better, save perhaps in some warmer clime.’

  ‘And she has had the best of medical attention.’

  ‘I cannot claim that.’

  ‘The most diligent, then. Come, doctor, I am in your debt.’

  Milne bowed ever so slightly and took a sip of his wine.

  ‘I am only too content that she is restored a good measure to full health, but are you able yet to say what it was that ailed her – and what the reason for her … seizure?’

  Milne shook his head. ‘Not with any certainty, no.’

  ‘Then with uncertainty?’

  Milne looked reluctant, but Hervey’s tone of encouragement tempted him to rehearse what he’d intended discussing with his ‘old friend’ at St George’s. ‘Postpartum disorders are perhaps the least understood of any generally occurring maladies. But—’

  ‘Postpartum? But Kezia’s birthing was four years ago – more.’

  Milne nodded. ‘As I said, these are among the least understood of disorders a physician in general practice encounters, if perhaps the most common. Dolores post partum, to give the condition its usual name, has been recognized for centuries – by Galen, even. I cannot be sure, for there is no clinical proof, but I believe Mrs Hervey to have been suffering from a chronic puerperal … melancholy. I was going to say “mania”, but that is to excite an unnecessary fear.’

  He took another sip of wine and settled a little more into his chair. It was the first they’d spoken in this way, and to his mind it was overdue.

  ‘I believe I have told you, Colonel, that when I was in practice in Aberdeen, I had correspondence with Robert Gooch – he is the foremost authority on obstetric medicine; he lectured at St Bartholomew’s hospital – for I’d begun to wonder if these cases of melancholy were not somehow connected with exterior factors, and had begun keeping a careful record. Gooch – who died recently, or else I would have consulted him in this case – was not of that opinion, and, indeed, over the course of years in which I made my records I myself was obliged to come to the same conclusion. There is evidence, however – which I myself could corroborate – that what he preferred to call puerperal mania is more common in the higher classes of society.’

  Hervey still looked doubtful. ‘And this puerperal mania can occur at so late a time as five years after childbirth?’

  ‘I don’t believe Mrs Hervey’s … I should prefer to call it “prostration” rather than “seizure”, can be characterized thus. It may be likened to the irruption you have told me of – with some delicacy I must say – of symptoms of melancholia much earlier.’

  He did not add – for it would have been unkind as well as unprofessional – that remarks by others (notably Fairbrother) had led him quite independently to that conclusion.

  ‘Gooch believed that it might be connected with lactation, and the extended feeding of the infant, which leads to exhaustion. Mrs Hervey’s regimen at the piano may have been an exacerbation – the exacerbation. As well, indeed, as a symptom. The prostration can be likened to the natural bursting of an abscess.’

  Hervey struggled to grasp the import of the surgeon’s diagnosis, for ‘mania’ was indeed a word that excited fear; but as ever when reaching the point of bewilderment, he fixed instead on the practical business of what to do.

  ‘Your treatment – it has consisted almost wholly in sedatives, has it not?’

  ‘It has. Gooch was against any depletion of blood, with which I am very ready to concur. My principal object has been gradually to relieve Mrs Hervey’s exhaustion by procuring for her a good night’s sleep – many good nights’ sleep – but to do so without recourse to heavy opiates, upon which she might become reliant. In the most part, cases of puerperal mania, or whichever is the term, are resolved from within, or else not at all. The physician’s function, essentially, is to facilitate rest in order to allow Nature to take its benevolent course – rather as with Collins. I remain of the view that Mrs Hervey will make a full recovery of her health – indeed, that she is close to that recovery now. Calmness is required hereon – a good diet, a little wine; and when the weather is better, exercise out of doors. Above all, perhaps, conversation.’

  Hervey was for once content to let go all reserve. ‘Doctor, there is nothing I should look forward to more.’

  Milne, who was anyway not obliged to let rank stand between him and his professional opinion, now saw his chance. ‘I can prescribe, Colonel, but I cannot make the patient respond. With respect, that is for you.’

  XII

  The Course of Nature

  London, Wednesday, 25 January 1832

  Bedford-square,

  24 January

  My dear Hervey,

  Would you do me the honour of dining tomorrow at the Travellers Club? I have intelligence that will be of the greatest interest and, I dare say, much profit.

  Ever yrs &c,

  Eyre Somervile

  IT HAD BEEN one of Hervey’s better days at Hounslow. His seat had not touched anything but the saddle. ‘Evolutions on the Heath’ were always pleasing, though with only two troops, the others seemingly permanently assigned every which way, he could scarcely take the head. In truth, too, with guard duties, fatigues and the usual ‘sick, lame and lazy’, even these two troops mustered between them fewer than eighty. There were times when he thought the Sixth would not so much disband as merely wither away. But observing a squadron at exercise, no matter what its strength, ever quickened his pulse and excited his thoughts.

  And now he looked forward to dinner with his old friend Eyre Somervile, Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order and perpetual administrator of the King’s distant settlements. They had first met in India and seen much adventure there, and then even more adventure at the Cape. They might yet have served in Canada together, where until lately Somervile had been minister, for at one time it looked as if Hervey would have to accept command of a regiment of Foot in lieu of the Sixth. He had even composed a letter to Kezia on the matter (‘And now, my dearest wife, I return to the subject of the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 81st. Events here … have led me to the settled conclusion that I must take the commission. In doing so I know it to be contrary to your wish, and that you have every good reason to set your face against it, Canada being a place of some primitive society yet, and I therefore can neither insist upon your accompanying me nor even hope for a change of heart, for I see that such would be unconducive to your music and therefore to your happiness. I shall therefore bear the deprivation for as long as needs be, in the sure hope that it will not be excessively long, and that we shall soon be reunited in a station more agreeable to you.’).

  But in the end he had not had to send the letter; there had been no Canada, or a station more agreeable either (Gibraltar had been another in which there was a vacancy with the infantry). Instead he had gained his heart’s desire, command of the regiment into which he had been commissioned. That it was so unfavourably sta
tioned – except for social purposes – and duty there becoming daily more wearisome, was unfortunate, but could he really contemplate selling out?

  For the moment, though, the prospect of good mutton, good burgundy and the best of company was enough to enliven a day already agreeably begun. Whether the promised ‘intelligence’ was of interest or profit was an altogether supplemental business.

  ‘Eleven, then, Sar’nt Wakefield,’ said Hervey as he got down outside the Travellers Club just before eight o’clock, giving him a half-crown’s extra-duty pay and subsistence, though doubtless Wakefield would be able to find a free supper with the War Office Party (being so close to St James’s Palace, they never went short of rations).

  Inside he found Somervile standing by a good fire in conversation with the Portuguese Minister Plenipotentiary, and although he would have been glad to hear the latest news from that troubled place – for it was only a few years ago that he’d been there with the unfortunate force of intervention in the ‘War of the Two Brothers’ – he was glad that his host detached himself as rapidly as was polite and they went at once to the coffee room.

  ‘It is a very agreeable club, this,’ said Somervile, as they took the most secluded of tables, which evidently he had reserved with a good tip. ‘There’s no knowing the people who pass by – like Carreira there. And when we move to our new quarters later this year …’

  The present ones were certainly remarkably shabby for an establishment so eminently favoured – an old inn, which Brooks’s had once occupied, and now with every appearance of a Channel packet after a stormy crossing. It had been founded by Lord Palmerston and others after the French wars, when the Continent was no longer cut off from England, as a place where gentlemen whose interests extended beyond the shires might meet and offer hospitality to notable foreign visitors. The qualification for membership – that a candidate must have travelled out of the British islands to a distance of at least five hundred miles from London in a direct line – was not difficult to meet for soldiers such as Hervey, or administrative sojourners like Somervile, but it served to winnow.