Hervey smiled and nodded appreciatively.
‘I am glad you approve, for I make but one condition.’
Hervey nodded again.
‘It is that you shall command the subsidiary force.’
Hervey’s eyes were wide with disbelief. ‘Sir, that is not possible, I—’
‘Those shall be my terms.’
‘Sir, allow me to explain. I am an officer of the Duke of Wellington’s staff, albeit a junior one. But I have been given quite specific duties here, duties I could not discharge were I to command such a force. The second objection is that I am a King’s officer, not a Company officer. I am not in the least certain that such a command would be lawful.’
‘There is not a third, perhaps greater objection?’ asked the rajah.
Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘I, I do not think so, sir.’
‘Then you do not feel yourself incapable of such a command? Insufficient for the responsibility of such a force?’
‘Sir, I—’
But the rajah would not let him finish. ‘No, of course you do not think yourself incapable. Captain Hervey, I should think there are few men more capable of exercising command than you.’
He blushed. ‘I am flattered, sir – greatly honoured – but it does not diminish the primary objection.’
‘Then,’ said the rajah, sighing, ‘we shall see what the agent of the Company has to say of the matter.’ And with that he called for hazree. ‘Take breakfast with me first, Captain Hervey.’
Instead, however, Hervey begged leave to speak with the collector at once.
He found him at breakfast in his quarters. It was the first opportunity he had had to speak with him alone, though even here he could not be certain that their conversation would remain private. There was little he could do about that, however, and, in any case, he proposed to say nothing – nor even did he think anything – that might not be laid before the rajah without embarrassment. That some of the rajah’s establishment were in the nizam’s pay left him no alternative, indeed.
Somervile seemed pleased, but not surprised, to see him, and beckoned his khitmagar to bring him coffee. ‘These are momentous times, are they not, Captain Hervey?’ he asked, smiling.
‘I am beginning to think that I might not see otherwise in my lifetime,’ replied Hervey, sighing.
‘I learn that the Duke of Wellington is having a little difficulty in Paris, too.’
‘Oh?’ said Hervey. ‘How so?’
‘He has been assailed in the street. It seems that there is some resentment that he commands an army of occupation. The royalists feel that now the usurper Bonaparte is gone France should be returned to the French. And, I hear tell, there is trouble with one or two husbands . . .’
‘I am sure that the duke is able to bear these things with fortitude,’ smiled Hervey. ‘How are things with Lord Moira?’ he ventured.
The collector looked baffled by the enquiry. Hervey wished he had not made the connection so directly, for Somervile was quite astute enough to draw the inference.
‘Lord Moira is, it seems, in the very best of sorts. He is quite determined on vigorous action in order to have peace from these Pindarees, and I understand that he now has the support of Leadenhall Street and the government. Or at least, there is quiescence in those quarters. I have it on the best authority, even, that he is soon to be ennobled with a marquessate.’
Hervey sensed that his next words were crucial to preserving his cover, but before he could speak the collector demonstrated the perceptivity of which Lucie had made so much.
‘Captain Hervey, did you suppose that the Duke of Wellington were somehow to be translated here at the expense of Lord Moira? Are you in some manner his scout?’
Hervey was aghast.
The collector laughed. ‘My dear sir, I have known as much since first we met! You forget that it is my business to be in the minds of men. You suppose that what in London is plausible will be equally so in the Indies. Well, I may tell you that it is not. You may, so to speak, have a parade of Grenadiers pass muster on the Horse Guards, but in India the sun is so bright that the merest speck on a tunic will stand out like an inkblot on parchment!’ He laughed again, calling to his khitmagar in confident Telugu for more coffee – and then to leave them alone. ‘Captain Hervey, you would be an adornment in Calcutta – for sure – but more importantly, you would come to see India as I do. And, since the wretched affair of Warren Hastings, there are fewer men each year who are prepared to see India as it is, rather than as it might be were only its rulers Englishmen.’
Hervey was not immediately convinced. ‘Do you not confuse our purpose in the East, sir?’ he asked boldly.
‘ “Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live”?’
Hervey all but scratched his head. ‘That is familiar, but—’
‘Milton,’ he replied.
‘Oh, Milton. My major was wont to quote Milton, but he had a decidedly melancholic turn. It does seem apt, though.’ Then he had second thoughts. ‘But have we not fought Bonaparte these past twenty years on that very precept?’
The collector frowned. ‘Would that you knew your Milton better, for it is less contrived at polity than with private morals!’
‘I think it dubious to suppose there is a distinction . . .’
‘Oh, Captain Hervey!’ groaned the collector, and then declaimed as if on the boards: ‘ “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” ’
‘Milton again, sir? And what is your meaning by that?’
‘Dust and heat – the essence of India!’ said the collector, surprised.
Hervey looked blank.
‘Captain Hervey, I shall speak plain: if you are the man I believe you to be, you will ever think meanly of yourself if you refuse the rajah’s request.’
‘Forgive me, sir, but I think you must perceive my difficulty at least. Such a course would be to stray a very great deal from that which I was meant to follow. I took a gamble in coming to Chintalpore because I believed it would be most expeditious to my mission. I must have the greatest care not to compound an error. And in any case, how do you know of the rajah’s request?’ he added, indignantly.
Somervile chose to ignore the question. ‘Captain Hervey, officers are appointed to the staff of great men to exercise their judgement, being in the mind of their principal. There is nothing uncommon in your exercise of initiative in coming to Chintalpore. I dare say that you are in a better position today to instruct the duke in the actuality that is Haidarabad than if you had dutifully ploughed your way first up the Hooghly river!’
‘Perhaps,’ replied Hervey, mollified slightly; ‘but how did you know of the rajah’s request?’
‘It is of no matter,’ replied the collector dismissively.
‘I consider that it is, sir!’ insisted Hervey; ‘I wish to know what collusion there has been in this concern!’
The collector smiled. ‘Captain Hervey, you must not suppose there are spies everywhere. I said before that it was my business to know what is in men’s minds. I knew perfectly well that that would be the rajah’s stipulation.’
Hervey sighed again. ‘See here, Mr Somervile, I make no admission by this, but the duties given to me by the Duke of Wellington do not permit of it. Nor, I believe, may a King’s officer be so employed on Company business without express authority.’
The collector sighed too, and more wearily. ‘The latter is but the refuge of the legalist. The former – well, I do not suppose that the duke is entirely illdisposed towards initiative.’
‘There is a perfectly able King’s officer here in Chintalpore who could exercise command with equal address as I.’
‘Who?’ enquired the collector, incredulously.
‘Mr Locke.’
‘Locke? That potulent officer of Marines? F
rom what I hear you would have the greatest difficulty hauling him off his little nautch girl!’
Hervey frowned in dissent. ‘That is unfair. He fought like a lion at Jhansikote.’
‘Hervey,’ said the collector, his voice lowered in conspiracy, ‘there will be no shortage of lions. What the rajah needs is a lion with the acuity of a mongoose!’
XV
FEVER
The following day
Hervey walked with Emma Lucie in the water gardens before the heat of the day drove all but the unfortunate to seek the shade. Despite the collector’s best efforts she had insisted on staying in Chintal for a further week, for it was the first time she had seen a princely state (Mysore she dismissed as merely an outpost of Madras). Hervey was glad she had stayed. He was, perhaps for the first time, feeling acutely the want of support that was the community of the Sixth. Private Johnson was a greater strength than ever he could have imagined, but he could hardly share his doubts with a man whose life rested so completely in his hands. There was Locke. But somehow Hervey was unable to confide. There ought to have been Selden, but Selden protested that he supposed him more capable than he was. ‘In the end I am a horse-doctor, that is all,’ he had lamented. And Selden was abed with fever too – no doubt induced by the late confusions, but in periodic deliriums nevertheless.
Hervey had on his straw hat, but though it kept off the sun its leather brow-band made his forehead permanently moist. He took it off and wiped his brow with his sleeve for a third time. Emma Lucie, in a white cotton frock and a broad straw hat with a trailing silk band, looked for all the world as if she might have been in his father’s garden at Horningsham. Years of acquaintance with the climate had conditioned her very comfortably to this spring season. As they reached the most active of the fountains Hervey stopped and bade her sit on its wall, for here he could be sure that noone might overhear them against the sound of falling water.
‘The rajah has asked me to take command of the Company’s subsidiary force when the treaty is signed.’ His tone was less than resolute.
‘You seem uncertain, Captain Hervey. I should have thought it a splendid thing for an officer.’
‘I am anxious that it intrudes on the purpose for which I was sent to India.’
‘To study the lance? Surely this would be a most opportune commission?’ she replied, puzzled.
‘Yes,’ he nodded, not wishing to pursue it, for she was acute enough to conclude there was more to it than a bamboo pole. ‘Quite so. The command is in any case to be a limited commission – until such time that the rajah gains more confidence in the Company.’
‘And a good command, I imagine – rather bigger than has been yours hitherto?’
He smiled. ‘I had the regiment for a day or so after Waterloo, but this would be the best part of a brigade – a thousand infantry, three hundred cavalry and a field battery. Yes, an exceptional command for a halfcolonel, let alone a captain.’
‘Let us call it a handsome command, then!’
‘Not enough cavalry, though,’ he mused aloud, as if he had already accepted the commission. ‘Only rapid manoeuvre could make up for numbers if it comes to a fight. We should need to bustle troops from one end of Chintal to the other.’
‘Then it seems doubly suited to a young head.’
‘Positions can come early in India, Mr Selden always said – in the military as well as the civil. Your own brother has great responsibility, and the collector.’
‘Positions come early, often as not,’ she smiled, ‘because men die younger or take their fortunes early and go to Cheltenham!’
Hervey made a sort of resigned shrug, and smiled too. Emma Lucie was no mere Madras hostess.
‘So shall you accept the offer? Mr Somervile told me the rajah would not conclude a treaty unless you were to have the command.’
Hervey took off his hat and wiped his forehead again. ‘As I was saying, Miss Lucie, my first duty is to the Duke of Wellington.’
She tilted her head.
No – it would not do. He had better place his trust entirely in his own judgement or else speak now to this woman who had, it seemed, wits, an understanding of the country and discretion. ‘Miss Lucie, I must speak straight with you—’
‘Speak that or not at all!’
‘Yes, I am sorry. In truth, my mission here is more to do with the nizam than the lance.’
She drew back, as if suspecting some treachery.
‘No, don’t misunderstand me, madam,’ he assured her hastily. ‘The duke has need of knowing – and I beg you do not ask me why – how faithful and effective an ally the nizam might be in any future scheme of the Company’s. You will see, therefore, that if I take this command – albeit for a short time until the rajah’s confidence is won by the Company’s nomination, a Colonel Forster – I may find myself set against the very man I am meant to be treating with.’
She thought awhile before replying. ‘I see your dilemma,’ she conceded. ‘But why are you here in Chintal? Is it merely to reacquaint yourself with Mr Selden?’
‘I beg you do not press me for an answer there either. I may assure you there is nothing dishonourable in it.’
‘Oh, Captain Hervey! I did not suppose you capable of a dishonourable thing if your life depended on it!’
‘I’m obliged, madam. And the more so for your hearing me now.’
‘I do know a little about Company affairs,’ she began tentatively. ‘One is not always obliged to leave the table as the more interesting talk of an evening begins. You spoke of things coming to a fight, needing more horse than you have. But I thought the very presence of a subsidiary force would be enough to deter the nizam from any adventure. For those are the conditions under which his own treaty of alliance is concluded, surely?’
She was right. She knew exactly how the subsidiary alliance system worked. ‘I am certain the nizam would be deterred – yes. But not the Pindarees, and it seems there may be some surrogation on the part of Haidarabad.’
She appeared to be contemplating the distinction.
‘And what place do the rajah’s soldiers have in your command?’
That, he was not sure. He knew it was the rajah’s wish that he should also take command of his regiments, for since the mutiny there was little confidence in their loyalty, except the sowars and Rajpoots. But he was less inclined to take it. ‘Its troubles are best dealt with from within.’
‘Is there any danger from within?’
He was unsure of her meaning.
‘Do you not think that until the cause of the mutiny is established—’
‘Oh, but it has been established,’ he replied confidently. ‘The rajah explained last night – the withholding of batta, the sepoys’ allowances?’
‘Yes, yes, that much I am aware of, Captain Hervey, but to what purpose was the money misappropriated – and by whom?’
He had never been inclined to underestimate Emma Lucie, but he was surprised nevertheless by her inclination to question. ‘I think it widely known that an official called Kunal Verma, the dewan, appropriated the money. Mr Selden, at least, is satisfied of his guilt.’
‘His sole guilt?’
He made no reply.
‘You had not considered the possibility that Mr Selden himself might somehow be implicated?’ she said, her eyebrows arching.
‘In no manner, madam!’ The suggestion was outrageous.
‘Captain Hervey, I have been in Chintal but a short time, and yet I have heard whispers—’
‘You may always hear whispers. I have shared too many billets in Spain with Selden to believe him capable of anything so base!’
Emma Lucie arched her eyebrows again and waved away a persistent hornet. ‘And the raj kumari?’
He was just as astounded. ‘Why should the raj kumari rob her father’s own sepoys?’
‘Ah,’ she replied, smiling. ‘Now at least you are considering motives. Why, indeed, should she do so? But the material point is that someone must have
been in league with Kunal Verma – or else his death was a most curious concurrence.’
Hervey had to concede her point. ‘Miss Lucie, you have been here scarcely one whole day. The suggestion that the raj kumari—’
‘I have not met the lady,’ she agreed, ‘and my knowledge of affairs is, I admit, principally that of the rajah’s table last night, but I hear such whispers against her – beginning even on the Godavari. More, certainly, than against Mr Selden.’
‘And of whom else have you heard accusations?’ he asked, after a moment’s contemplation.
‘No-one,’ she replied. ‘Is that not, perhaps, indicative?’
He confided that he had earlier suspected the white officers – perhaps even the Germans, for they had escaped the mutiny. And, indeed, Captain Steuben’s death had been without adequate witnesses.
She took off her hat and fanned herself for a few moments. ‘Strangely enough, Captain Hervey, you are the first King’s officer I have known. I have met one or two, yes, but I don’t believe I have ever spoken more than formalities. I will not say that Company officers are without loyalty, for they are fiercely loyal to their sepoys often enough.’ She spoke with apparent authority. ‘But in the end they serve a commercial enterprise, and they see most things in terms of the dividends which accrue to them. Were you a Company officer your decision would be a simple case of bookkeeping.’
He smiled. ‘Well, I am gratified you see the irreconcilability of it.’
‘Irreconcilable?’ She was surprised. ‘Not at all. If you accept the position under the Company’s auspices, you and the nizam share an interest – you as a servant, he as a declared ally. There can be no subsequent difficulty there. If you were to take command of the rajah’s forces too, then that would be a different matter – do you not see?’
It seemed so simple. He wondered if Philip Lucie’s advancement in the Madras council was entirely on his own merits: his sister must have been of singular influence. But he was becoming restless with the heat, as well the debate. He stood up, saying he had troubled her long enough. ‘Shall we walk to the stables and see the Arab foal? It’s as white as snow – if you remember what that is.’
The Nizam's Daughters Page 31
