Hervey 08 - Company Of Spears (37 page)

‘No.’

‘Astonishing. So, you imagined that when a knight – or a baronet, or whatever he is – married, his wife was made “Lady” by the King?

’ ‘No.’

‘What
then?’

‘Ah just thought somebody wi’ a title married someone else wi’ a title.’

Hervey was lost for words. And then he began to smile – but to himself, for he would not have given offence for all the world: happy the man for whom dignities and styles were of such little consequence! ‘Well, now you know different’ (he would not say ‘better’). ‘And while we’re about the subject… ‘

‘Ay, sir?’

‘No matter.’

‘Ah’d like t’know.’

‘Really, Johnson, it is of such little consequence.’

‘But it’s been botherin’ thee.’

‘It has not been “bothering” me.’ Hervey found himself sighing. ‘But since we speak of it, there is a very little thing you might try to recall: if a lady is the daughter of a duke, or a marquess, or an earl, she is called “Lady” and then her name and then her husband’s name. If she is the wife of a baronet or a knight she is “Lady” and then just her husband’s name.’

‘Nobody ever told me that.’

‘And you never thought to ask?’

‘Ah never thought there were owt
to
ask!’

The logic was without flaw. ‘Truly, it is of no consequence.’ He took a long sip of coffee.

Johnson was coming to the end of his huswifery. He stood holding a torn shirt. ‘There were
one
thing ah al’a’s couldn’t fathom. Why were Mrs ‘Ervey called Lady ‘Enrietta ‘Ervey, cos tha weren’t “Sir” to other people?’

Hervey saw his explanation had been incomplete. Nor could he suppress a warm smile. ‘As I recall it, Johnson,
you
were the only one who ever called her “Mrs Hervey”. It was because her father had been an earl, and even if I had been
Sir
Matthew Hervey, she would still have used her own name first. Is all now clear?’

‘Ay, sir. An’ so Lady Katherine Greville…?’

Hervey stopped himself from clearing his throat. ‘Is the daughter of an earl, married to a knight.’

‘An’ Lady Lankester?’

‘The widow of a baronet.’

‘An’ so when she marries thee, sir, she’ll be … not Lady ‘Ervey?’

‘No, because I am neither baronet nor knight. She will be plain “Mrs Hervey”.’

Johnson put the shirt into a raffia box. ‘Won’t she mind that?’

If the question were impertinent, Hervey no longer recognized impertinence in his groom. Long years had convinced him of Johnson’s heart, and the late trouble – the late
misunderstanding
– with Italians and coral had not altered his opinion in any degree. ‘I must trust not.’

‘Ah don’t like that dog o’ Lady Lankester’s.’

‘The dog is perfectly amenable if you don’t startle her.’

‘An’ ah don’t think she likes me.’

‘She hasn’t bitten you?’

Johnson looked puzzled.

‘The dog, she hasn’t bitten you has she?’

‘Ah meant Lady Lankester.’

Hervey began hearing the same doubting tone with which Emma had pressed him in Gloucestershire. He tried to be cheery. ‘She’s only met you but two or three times!’

‘Ah reckon she won’t want me abaht after yer both wed, sir.’

So that was it! He had never imagined … ‘Johnson, I may safely assure you – and you must believe it – that I shall never dispense with your services until you yourself wish it.’ A smile came to his lips. ‘Or Bow-street requires it!’

Hervey went to the Somerviles that evening a happier man. There was nothing he could do about the ‘epidemic disorder’, as Sam Kirwan was officially describing it: the horses were in the best of hands, and Serjeant-major Armstrong could be relied on to enforce the quarantine. There was evidently a supply of remounts – though he doubted fifty would be to hand at once – and if other duties detained him, he could certainly rely on Lieutenant Fearnley to make sound purchases. As to the money – the War Office must be only too aware of the contingencies of campaigning. There had been no negligence, no neglect, and but for the inevitable and perfectly proper enquiries by some clerk in Downing Street he need have no disquiet in that direction. Above all, the business at the frontier had been both exhilarating and gainful: he had, by his own reckoning and Eyre Somervile’s preliminary reading of his report (a brief interview in the late afternoon had been all that could be managed in the lieutenant-governor’s day of inspections), accomplished what he had been sent there to do. Moreover, he had helped instigate certain measures to ease the immediate Xhosa nuisance. All this he could take the greatest satisfaction in, the more so for its standing in sharp contrast with events of the year before (Portugal, he trusted, would ever be his lowest ebb). He felt in large measure restored. And the gains had not all been His Majesty’s. The country, the Xhosa and above all Edward Fairbrother had taught him a great deal more about the soldier’s art. He had never once thought that he possessed all the art there was to have, but long years in the Peninsula and the tumultuous days of Waterloo, and then the extraordinary campaigns in the East, had given him a certainty in his own proficiency which, in truth, the late unhappy business in Portugal had not diminished. The affair with the Xhosa had been but a scrape, albeit a deadly one; he had observed how it must be done here – and above all how it must
not
be.

He arrived at the lieutenant-governor’s residence as the sun was rapidly disappearing. He paused a moment outside to watch its descent, still a sight of wonder in these latitudes for all his six weeks in the colony:

The Star that bids the Shepherd fold,

Now the top of Heav’n doth hold,

And the gilded car of day,

His glowing Axle doth allay

In the steep Atlantick stream

He nodded contentedly. This was a beautiful country, for all its frontier savagery – and its horse sickness. He thought he might be reluctant to leave it when the time came. But thinking of Milton made him think also of Joseph Edmonds: he owed that officer so much – his example, his encouragement; above all the forbearance and unswerving support whenever he overstepped the mark in rash cornet-judgement. Or
was
it merely
cornet
-judgement? Was he not so disposed still? Yes, he knew it; and that much was good, for he could not guard against what he did not recognize. And with Edmonds long gone, and now Daniel Coates, he was without such counsel:

And Advice with scrupulous head,

Strict Age, and sowre Severity,

With their grave Saws in slumber ly.

We that are of purer fire Imitate the Starry Quire…

Hervey nodded. He moved in the military firmament, periodically, but he did not – could not – imitate its ‘Starry Quire’. Except, perhaps, that Kat had begun to show him how he might.

He felt a sudden twinge of guilt. He had treated Kat abominably, by any reckoning; and she had only returned his ill news with kindness and painful understanding – painful both for him
and
for her. He wondered what she would do now: perhaps return to Alderney, if she could think of Alderney as home to return to, and be reconciled in every way with her husband? No, in truth what he had seen of Sir Peregrine Greville made the notion fanciful. And so there would be other lovers. How could there not be, for Kat was a beautiful woman?
Why
should there not be? Only that he hated the idea.

He shivered suddenly. Such thoughts were now wholly improper (if they had ever indeed been even partially proper). He turned from the sun as it touched the horizon, and took the steps to the door of the residence. So much had ‘sacred Milton’ kept his thoughts from ‘Riot, and ill manag’d Merriment’. He could not understand himself: the exhilaration of but two months in this place!

At the door of the residence Hervey found familiar faces: Jaswant, the khansamah, and several other of the Somerviles’ Indian servants – and black faces too, got up very smartly in reds and blues.

‘Good evening, Colonel Sahib!’

Hervey smiled and returned the greeting more fully than he needed to: a familiar
and
a friendly face so far from home was a welcome thing. And ‘Colonel Sahib’ sounded so fine! No matter that in all probability it was temporary, he was indeed ‘Colonel’. And in a colony of a single general, a colonel was of consequence.

He began wondering when he would actually meet General Bourke. Not that it mattered greatly in the ordinary course of things: he had carried out his reconnaissance of the frontier under the lieutenant-governor’s orders, and his commission with the Mounted Rifles came directly from the Horse Guards; but he would like nevertheless to make a proper beginning with the General Officer Commanding. ‘Am I the only guest this evening, Jaswant?’

In deliberately well modulated Bengali, the khansamah replied, ‘Colonel Somerset-sahib will be dining, Colonel Sahib, but he will not arrive until later.’

Hervey’s heart fell a good way.

He followed Jaswant along a limed corridor, brilliantly lit, to where Somervile stood at the open French doors of a small reception room contemplating the last of the sun.

‘ “Now Phoebus sinketh in the west”!’

Hervey raised his eyebrows. ‘Quite remarkable. I was observing only the same myself outside.’

‘ “And the slope sun his upward beam Shoots against the dusky pole.” I confess I’ve quite forgotten the rest.’

‘So have I.’

Emma came into the room.
Colonel
Hervey!’

Hervey greeted her with a smile and an embrace. ‘I had not thought your drawing rooms such formal affairs, Lady Somervile.’

‘We are ever at the lieutenant-governor’s command.’

‘Just so, madam.’

Eyre Somervile remained at the window. ‘You know, I do think Phoebus shows a different face depending on where he is: quite a different appearance from India, quite different.’

Emma looked at her guest.

Hervey glanced at his host, who remained intent on the setting sun. ‘Indeed, I believe it so,’ he tried, determined that the sun should not regulate the conversation. ‘I have lately been in the eastern part of the colony. The country there is different in every degree from Madras and Bengal. It is savage, and yet at the same time not so … fierce. The sun, of course, has much to do with it. It warms the country rather than burns; though they say that in summer not greatly further inland it can be quite as desert-hot as Rajpootana.’

Emma continued pointedly on the subject of the weather, or rather climate. ‘I confess I find it agreeable in the extreme, though I have been here but a short time.’ Then glancing at her husband, without response, she changed the subject very decidedly. ‘Now, Matthew, I bear a letter for you.’ She held out an envelope.

He did not recognize the hand.

‘From your betrothed!’

He looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, I…’

‘Eyre and I shall retire for a little while.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Hervey hurriedly. ‘I mean, you should not have to retire in order to let me read.’

Emma smiled. ‘I think a man ought to be allowed a little privacy in communicating with his sweetheart, even at such a remove.’

Hervey coloured rather at ‘his sweetheart’. Of course Kezia Lankester was just that, but he had never quite thought those words.

Before he could protest further, Emma removed herself and her husband from the room.

Hervey took a few steps closer to a candelabrum and broke the seal (he noted it was not Lankester’s, and presumed it therefore to be her own). He had not expected a letter. He had written to her on arriving at Cape Town, and intended doing so again now he was returned, but she could not have received his letter before writing hers.

Hertfordshire,
17th June 1827

My dear Colonel,

I trust that this finds you in good health and happy circumstances, and I send you congratulations and warm good wishes on your promotion, as does my father, who asks me to thank you for your hospitality of the two days prior to your departure. He particularly wished me to express again his pleasure on meeting you, and at our betrothal. For my part I must say once more how delightful it was to meet both Miss Hervey and Georgiana…

He read on. The polite expressions of pleasure and various causes for satisfaction continued, but in a cool and somewhat mechanical way, so that by the end he felt it might have been from Elizabeth herself on a matter of family business. But, he told himself, this was a first letter, their betrothal had been an unusual affair following so brief an acquaintance, and the time for expressions of endearment would follow. He did not mind the somewhat arch salutation (it was probably a relief to her, not having to initiate the intimacy of their correspondence) and after all,
he
had managed only ‘My dear Kezia’ and a few paragraphs hardly more amorous. It perhaps seemed strange in comparison with Kat’s last letter, received just as he was leaving for his ship, which was full of unselfconscious sentiments of affection. He shuddered at the import – what he
thought
was the import – and then put it from his mind as a mere demonic qualm.

He folded the two sheets of vellum – he need not read them a second time for now – and replaced them in the envelope. Then he went to the window to distract himself with what remained of the sun’s glow ‘in the steep Atlantick stream’.

Emma returned, alone. ‘Eyre has just received a despatch from General Bourke. He will join us shortly.’ She sat down.

The khansamah entered.

‘Matthew, I’m so sorry: we evidently left you to your charming diversion without a drink in your hand.’

Hervey looked at the khansamah. ‘Chota peg, Jaswant; mehrbani,’ he said without thinking. The Somerviles spoke a very proper form of Bengali, whereas his Urdu was merely serviceable. It was in truth the emergent vocabulary of the cantonments which, since Warren Hastings’s day, the British – and the wives who increasingly accompanied them – preferred to the real vernacular. It was a compromise, easy enough for the sahibs and memsahibs to acquire, and easy enough for the little armies of servants – native speakers of any number of the languages of the sub-continent – to understand. Much as Hervey despised the practice, it had not been long before he had succumbed, so common was it in the garrison of Calcutta. If only he had spoken to Vaneeta in Bengali, instead of in the English that she spoke so well…