Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears

by Allan Mallinson

Emma held up a hand. ‘Do not you begin! He needs no encouragement; rather the opposite indeed. By the way, shall you come with us to Gloucestershire? The house will appeal to you, I think. It is built in the Moghul fashion. Eyre is excessively keen to see it.’

  Hervey looked thoughtful. ‘I’m sorry, I had quite forgotten. And Lady Lankester is to accompany?’

  ‘She is. We go on Friday, until seven days following. Eyre says we can post in just the one day.’

  ‘I think it possible to post in a day, though I imagine your bones will be rearranged.’

  ‘Shall you come?’

  ‘I should like to very much, but there are one or two matters to attend. I didn’t say, but there’s a fearful bad eruption of something in our horse lines, quite possibly farcy.’

  Emma was not dismayed. ‘Can you be of particular service in that? I very much think that a week in the country would set you up capitally, Matthew. You have driven yourself excessively these past months, if I may say so. Eyre has told me of it.’

  Hervey inclined his head. ‘I think that it would not quite do for me to be absent with such a thing as farcy taken hold, though I won’t deny a week in the country – or even a few days – would be agreeable. That was my intention in Wiltshire, though the wretched fever came again.’

  Emma looked pained. ‘You take the quinine still, I hope?’

  ‘Not as a rule, no. Not since being in Lisbon.’ He brightened. ‘But hear: what Eyre does not yet know is that I may soon have the proper command of the regiment. You recall my speaking of Daniel Coates, who taught me to ride and shoot and all?’ Emma nodded.

  ‘He died a week ago and left me a considerable sum to purchase a lieutenant-colonelcy. And I have applied, and Lord George Irvine, our colonel, is to support me.’

  Emma sighed with true satisfaction. ‘I am excessively pleased for you, Matthew. It is exactly as you deserve, and your regiment will be most fortunate to have you.’

  Hervey basked for a moment in the warmth of her smile. ‘Thank you. Though perhaps until the eggs are in the pudding…’

  ‘Of course. But I should say, Eyre will not entirely share my joy.’

  Hervey frowned. ‘Oh? How so?’

  ‘Has he spoken of the Cape Colony?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, I should have congratulated you before. It is splendid news. Except that I have no desire to lose your company. I imagine you shall go with him?’

  It was not the answer to the question she had in mind, and Hervey’s own question in turn surprised her.‘Of course!’

  ‘And young Somervile?’

  ‘Indeed! You would have me leave him here?’

  Hervey thought of Georgiana and his own practice. ‘No, Emma, I would not have you leave him for a moment.’

  There was no awkward pause, as well there might have been had they not known each other for so long. But even so the appearance now of Jaswant was welcome.

  ‘Memsahib, dinner is served,’ he said, in rapid Urdu.

  ‘Mehrbani, Jaswant. We shall dine as soon as Somervile Sahib is dressed.’

  Again, the Urdu was so fast that Hervey was only just able to understand. He had neither spoken nor heard it in twelve months, and in truth he had never been nearly as fluent as Emma. ‘You know, I have not sat down with you both since before …’ He thought better of it, and returned instead to the unanswered invitation. ‘You know, I might travel down to Gloucestershire on Saturday. Things should be in hand by then.’

  Emma beamed. ‘I am so pleased.’

  ‘But what is it that prevents Somervile’s unrestricted joy at my own news?’

  Emma rose, holding the smile. ‘I think I shall leave him to explain for himself.’

  The Somerviles kept both an English and an Indian cook. This evening it was the same Bengali whose sweet and spicy dishes had delighted Hervey many an evening in Calcutta, when at times he had been almost in residence with the Third in Council and his lady at Fort William. In Bloomsbury, as there, the Somerviles followed the Indian practice of beginning with the sweetest dishes, so that they sat down to a table spread with pomegranates, grapes and jujubes, oranges peeled and dusted with ginger, finger-lengths of sugar cane, and slices of mango. When Hervey had attended his first Indian feast, in the princely state of Chintal, he had sat next to the rajah, who had half mocked the English way of proceeding through many dishes to a final sweet course, as though, he had said, ‘you must earn sweetness by progression through much sourness – as in life itself.’ The rajah had said that in India they had no such coyness in their pleasures: ‘We have earned title to indulgence in this incarnation through preparation in earlier ones.’ That evening in Chintal, at his right hand, had sat the rajah’s daughter, the raj kumari, a beauty whose like he had never before seen, or imagined; and later by some power that he thought a kind of madness induced by the very air itself of those strange lands, he had all but defiled his adoration of Henrietta in the raj kumari’s entitlement to indulgence. Only some years later, when he returned to India, a widower, a bittering man, did he see the madness for what it was – and embrace it warmly. But all that must end, he had decided. Soon he would make regular the business of his manly needs.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ said Emma to her husband, ‘do you not think it becoming that our guest may soon be lieutenant-colonel?’ She had told him the news at once.

  ‘I do indeed,’ replied Somervile, almost boisterous, as a khitmagar began refilling glasses.

  Hervey nodded in acknowledgement. ‘But not forgetting there’s many a slip…’

  ‘No, of course. But, you know, Hervey, I had thoroughly expected the promotion. Indeed, I had half arranged it.’

  Hervey’s face was screwed into a perfect picture of incomprehension. ‘Somervile, I would not put anything beyond your reach, except that in the case of regimental command I rather thought the question lay between the buyer, the colonel and the Horse Guards.’

  Somervile took care to check his enthusiasm just enough to swallow several jujubes, and then thought better of his game. He had a notion that at this moment the table, what with Hervey positively glowing at the prospect of command, was not the best place to reveal his hand. He had a better idea: he would tempt him with a display of the very artefacts of the life that Hervey knew best. But that, perforce, was a hand to play after dinner. Meanwhile conviviality would serve – as well as being the most natural of things in the company of his old, and supremely trusted, friend.

  ‘How was your funeral? A fitting one for so eminently decent a fellow?’

  Hervey found his glass being filled for a third time. He glanced at Emma, who gave no sign of noticing. ‘Fitting … yes, very. The Wiltshire Yeomanry turned out smartly, Lord Bath was there of course, and General Tarleton came too.’

  ‘Tarleton? ‘Pon my word: a singular honour to an old trumpeter.’

  ‘Just so. It was most affecting.’

  ‘General Tarleton of the American war?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

  ‘No, except from his portrait. There is a print of it somewhere in the house. A very handsome one. You’ve seen it?’

  ‘I have seen the image, yes,’ said Hervey.

  She smiled, indulgently. ‘You yourself will be commissioning a portrait soon, no doubt. Somervile is.’

  Hervey looked suitably impressed. ‘Is this true, Somervile? Of course it must be if Emma says so.’

  ‘Since I have a son and heir I feel it incumbent upon me.’

  ‘You have good reason too, Matthew,’ added Emma, detecting that her guest possibly considered the undertaking premature.

  Hervey smiled but ignored the suggestion. ‘Who shall paint you?’ he asked, in a tone implying he was more sympathetic than Emma had supposed.

  Somervile took a long, cogitative drink of his hock. ‘Lawrence, I thought, though he’s probably past his best; or Beechey, perhaps.’

  Hervey’s eyebrows revealed considerable surprise. ‘I had not imagined … Forgive me. I suppos
ed the likes of Lawrence and Beechey would have years of commissions awaiting them.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Somervile, nodding, and draining his glass. ‘That’s what Emma says too. Well, there’ll be a pupil, perhaps. There is not exactly an excess of time.’

  ‘You mean before you leave for the Cape?’

  ‘Quite.’

  A khitmagar had begun clearing the sweet dishes, and another brought one of Hervey’s favourites, which first he had tasted at the rajah’s feast – Mandaliya, the entrails of young lambs, filled with marrow and spices known only to Emma’s Bengali, and roasted over charcoal. The rajah, a man of startling sensibility and vocabulary, had spoken of Mandaliya as ‘the very apotheosis of taste’. Hervey smiled at the recollection of it, such perfect erudition, such gentlemanlike manner. He had so much liked the rajah – his courage, humanity, integrity, each of a rare degree. He wished he had travelled to Chintal again during the long years of that second time in India…

  He braced himself. ‘Lady Lankester – she will drive to Gloucestershire with you?’

  It was quite a turn of conversation, but Emma was content enough to leave the question of portraits – for the time being, at least. ‘She takes her own carriage, but yes, she will drive with us. Might you accompany us?’

  Hervey did not know how to respond. Here was an unexpected, but not unlooked for, opportunity to present himself, and yet there was the business of the lieutenant-colonelcy to press, as well as the outbreak in the horse lines. ‘I had thought Saturday … but I rather think I might, if duties permit.’

  Emma looked at him quizzically, though he did not see it, and then the conversation passed at Somervile’s prompting to the week’s obituaries, of which Hervey was still ignorant. And then, as it always did, to India.

  Hervey began wondering if he would see India again, or yet if he even wanted to. They had been long years in Bengal, but wholly restorative. He regretted he had never gone back to Chintal to see the rajah, and indeed some of the other friends he had made there. But he had feared the raj kumari (if she were not to be quite the death of him) would somehow torment him to destruction. It had all been so long ago – ten years. And, of course, in Calcutta there had been Vaneeta. She had had but a small measure of the blood of Isabella Delgado’s countrymen, but mixed with that of Bengal, Vaneeta’s company had frequently been sublime…

  He woke. Sublime: as indeed were the confections which now followed the Mandaliya, more sublime even than the Madhuparka, the honeyed milk which accompanied them. They drank the best hock and burgundy too, exactly as in Calcutta. Hervey sighed inwardly. Yes, he would like to see India again, where all tastes were intense and there was no ‘coyness in pleasure’. Where, indeed, he might eat lotus and forget all ‘obligation’.

  When Jaswant appeared with coffee at the end of the feast, Somervile laid down his napkin and pushed back his chair. ‘Come, Hervey, we shall take our coffee in my library. I would have you see the campaign furniture I have assembled!’

  Hervey glanced at Emma.

  ‘I will join you in a while, Matthew. From what I saw earlier it will take Eyre half an hour to assemble his bed.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ protested her husband. ‘The catalogue says it may be assembled with one hand.’

  Emma smiled challengingly.

  * * *

  In the library, a big room half filled with expedition baggage, Somervile was at once animated. He was a scholar of very considerable learning, and yet to Hervey he had often seemed never more content than when he was cocked atop a good horse, pistols at his belt and bandits in sight. Somervile handed him John Durham’s catalogue, with its indications of what he had bought for the campaign in Cape Colony (not, to Hervey’s knowledge, that there was any campaign in prospect).

  He began reading the preamble. His own camp furniture in the Peninsula had been modest, for portage was ever a problem (he lost far more than eventually he returned to England with), and in India, where portage had been legion, his furniture had been substantial. Mr Durham’s exhortation to potential customers was of another world, however:

  In encampments, persons of the highest distinction are obliged to accommodate themselves in such temporary circumstances, which encampments are ever subject to. Hence every article of an absolutely necessary kind must be made very portable, both for package and that such utensils should not retard rapid movement, either after or from the enemy. The articles of cabinet work used in such services are, therefore, each of them required to be folded in the most compact manner that can be devised; yet this is to be done in such a way as that when they are opened out they will answer their intended purpose. There are therefore camp or field bedsteads, camp chairs, desks, stools and tables…

  ‘My dear Somervile, don’t you imagine that the position of lieutenant-governor shall require you to be resident in Cape-town, and that if you travel it shall be to where there are His Majesty’s subjects, and therefore the usual comforts?’

  Somervile looked dismayed. ‘I do not so imagine! You don’t suppose that Cape Colony is pegged out like a gymkhana. I shall need to beat its bounds! Indeed, I have every expectation of being instructed to extend those bounds!’

  Hervey knew that at two bottles Somervile could become positively venturesome, though he had observed the same spirit at nothing more than a cup of arabica. The authorities would know his ardour well, as much as they did his scholarship in native affairs, and so he began wondering if his friend’s appointment to an otherwise undistinguished station did indeed presage more active business.

  ‘See first this bed, Hervey.’

  Somervile had evidently been engaged in earlier practice, since he was able to unfasten and refasten the retaining hooks, pull the several levers and engage the various locking joints with facility, until there stood in the middle of the room a serviceable-looking single (occasional double) camp bed. When he threw the drapes over the canopy the effect was more of permanence than of the field. Hervey felt sure it would have been appropriate for the governor-general of Bengal, let alone beating about the dusty bounds of the Cape of Good Hope. ‘You do expect to take the odd bearer with you?’

  Somervile failed to recognize the tease. ‘Yes, yes, of course. But I want to be certain of my equipage.’

  Hervey nodded, smiling. ‘That is very proper. What is in those large chests?’

  ‘Ah, yes: my dining room.’ Somervile lifted a lid to reveal four knocked-down, upholstered chairs. ‘There are twelve in all. And a table in yonder flat box.’

  There were also a brass-mounted secretaire, a travelling bookcase with inset-brass grille doors, a caned mahogany sofa-bed, two folding armchairs, a mahogany washbasin, and a travelling bidet which Somervile unfolded from a leather carrying case no bigger than a lady’s portmanteau. The whole effect was, indeed, of serviceability, of practicality and economy of labour (if not of materials), so that, as the blandishments of Mr Durham’s trade card had it, when ‘persons of the highest distinction are obliged to accommodate themselves in such temporary circumstances which encampments are ever subject to’, they might do so in the greatest possible comfort. Hervey smiled even broader. He could picture Sir Eyre Somervile K.H. entertaining nobly both Dutch and English settlers in a style they almost certainly did not enjoy at their own farms – and perhaps even a native prince or two, who would surely be overawed by a demonstration of English cabinet-making skill. Or was the colony rather more civilized than he supposed? It had been Dutch-settled for two centuries and more. ‘Somervile I am all admiration. This will have come at no small a price. Your devotion to duty is ever entire. I might wish, indeed, that I were coming with you!’

  His old friend, who had been giving every impression of an eccentric among his collection of curiosities, spun round and fixed him with the same intense look that Hervey had seen in India when the wind of necessity changed suddenly. ‘I wish you were. Indeed, I hope you will. I have need of you.’

  Hervey quickened. ‘My dear Somervile, I think you forge
t all that has recently passed. I have learned a little humility from the Portuguese affair – and a desire for a little ease!’

  Somervile began fiddling with the handle to a secret compartment in a dispatch box. ‘If by that you mean you are intent on toadying your way to advancement then I caution you against it very decidedly.’

  Hervey frowned. ‘It implies no toadying at all, merely the recognition that to move a mound of clay is better done with leverage rather than taking a kick at it.’

  ‘And a good deal of money.’

  Hervey did not hesitate. Indeed, he almost spat the words: ‘I’ve nothing but contempt for it.’ It was the first time he had admitted it since the prospect of the lieutenant-colonelcy had arisen – even to himself.

  Somervile sprang the secret compartment, as in some show of revelation. ‘There! I think you had better come with us to Gloucestershire, and we will discuss the terms of the undertaking.’

  Hervey stood bewildered. ‘What undertaking? What on earth do you talk about?’

  Somervile narrowed his eyes. ‘The Cape Corps, the colony’s militia and yeomanry. More than just militia and yeomanry indeed, for some are regulars. The Corps’s to be reorganized, and radically. There’s to be a new regiment raised, of mounted rifles. I want that you should have them. It would mean a lieutenant-colonel’s brevet, substantive when parliament approves the plans. And then I should have a man whose judgement I could trust. There are native tribes on the eastern frontier threatening war again. Come and be enlivened by the touch of the spear!’

  ‘The touch of the spear? Somervile, you’re speaking riddles.’

  ‘Oh, my dear fellow, I expected better of you. Do you not know the legends of your knightly caste? They were questing for more than the Grail, you recall.’

  Hervey raised his hands, conceding. ‘“I was wounded by the spear and it alone can heal me”?’

  Somervile thumped the despatch box. ‘Just so! Hervey, it’s a very fair prospect indeed in Africa! What paths of glory, what opportunity for distinction, shall there be in Hounslow?’