Nizams Daughters

Lucie with a smile. ‘But come, it is time to supplement all that ship’s biscuit you have been subsisting on with some red meat!’

When they were seated, after grace (from which Somervile’s ‘amen’ was conspicuously absent), and as hock chill enough to bring a mist to the side of the glasses was poured, the collector looked directly at Hervey and frowned. ‘And so are you come, sir, to seek your fortune in the east, or to inform us of some delinquency the duke considers us guilty of?’

He had scarcely taken two spoons of soup before having to protest that he had no other designs but acquiring skill with the lance.

‘I am in any case much relieved to learn that you are an emissary of the Duke of Wellington, for he can do little harm,’ replied Somervile, raising an eyebrow.

Hervey could not, from either words or intonation, gauge Somervile’s precise meaning. ‘In what sense might the duke do any harm, sir?’ he enquired.

‘I mean that as a military man there is little to fear from the duke. If he were to return and put all of the Carnatic to the sword he would do little lasting harm. If, however, he took cloth and returned with a bible he would have most of India in revolt.’

Hervey looked astonished at the proposition — both its parts.

‘Generally speaking, Captain Hervey, the Hindoo does not fear death half so much as he fears baptism,’ explained the collector. ‘I am more greatly exercised by the emissaries of Mr Wilberforce who wish to convert the heathen to their especially repugnant form of Christianity!’

Emma Lucie sighed and raised her eyebrows with studied amusement. ‘Mr Somervile includes me in his strictures, Captain Hervey, for I take a Sunday-school class and there are native pupils.’

‘But Miss Lucie’s is a most accommodating form of religion, Captain Hervey,’ replied Somervile without looking at her. ‘It stirs up little ardour. You have read, I hope, of Warren Hastings?’

This was becoming remarkably like dinner at Cork, thought Hervey, when that assembly of patriots had tested his understanding of history. ‘Yes, I have read of his trial,’ he replied cautiously.

‘Trial? Impeached before a lunatic House of Lords! Seven whole years they vilified his comprehension of this country!’

‘The collector feels a keen affinity for Warren Hastings, Hervey. They were each at Westminster, a very superior school, you understand!’ said Lucie gravely.

The collector smiled. ‘I admit it.’

‘He will admit, too, of equal scholarship at Winchester and Eton,’ added Lucie with a look of mock despair; ‘but the likes of Shrewsbury — where I received my education — he holds in scant regard.’

Hervey looked back at him. ‘I was at Shrewsbury too, sir.’

‘Indeed?’ said Lucie, agreeably surprised.

‘I left just as the war was taken to the Peninsula.’

‘My time was past somewhat before then. Trafalgar was done in my second year at Cambridge.’

‘And did you know a boy called Henry Locke?’ Lucie recalled at once. ‘Adonis?’

‘Well, yes,’ sighed Hervey, thinking how he might explain the change in his appearance.

‘He was a year or so below me,’ said Lucie, the recollection of him evidently pleasant; ‘but what an athlete! He could throw a ball clear across the river.’

‘Well, sir, he is with me aboard the Nisus. He is commanding officer of her marines.’

Lucie nodded, agreeably again. ‘Then I should very much like to see him.’

Somervile evidently thought it time to make some amends for the impression given of him. ‘Ultimately, Lucie, the only means of judging a school is by its alumni. Captain Hervey, here, is a distinguished enough soldier to attract the attention of a field marshal, so I should suppose him to be a man of sensibility. I have a high regard for men under discipline. I conclude from this additional evidence, therefore, that Shrewsbury school is a diamond of the first water.’

‘Just so,’ agreed Lucie, wishing to move on. ‘You were saying of Warren Hastings?’

‘I was saying that his comprehension will be vindicated, if indeed it has not already been so. To succeed in any measure in India you must treat with the native from a position of close association. Have you heard of Sir Charles Wilkins, Captain Hervey?’

Hervey said he had not.

But Emma Lucie had: ‘The Sanskrit scholar, do you mean, Mr Somervile?’

‘Yes indeed, madam,’ he replied with no especial notice of the singularity of her knowing — nor indeed, of the reason. ‘He was the first Englishman to gain a proper understanding of Sanskrit. He translated the Bhagavhad-gita. Hastings wrote a foreword and in it he said that every instance which brings the real character of the Hindoo home to observation will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own. These are wise sentiments: there are too many which contemptuously deny them.’

‘One may be counted too many, Somervile,’ said Lucie promptly, ‘but do you really suppose there are enough to imperil the Company’s situation?’

‘Let me put the question to you, sir,’ he replied. ‘How many in the service of the Company hereabouts make any concession to native custom — beyond smoking a hookah or taking to bed dusky, lower-caste women?’

Lucie blanched and protested.

‘Do not trouble on my account, gentlemen,’ urged Emma; ‘you forget I have been in these parts quite long enough to know the way of things.’

Somervile pressed on, not the least abashed. ‘You, Lucie, are an honourable exception here in Madras, but how many of your fellows have troubled to learn any more of the language of the natives with whom they speak, other than to facilitate satisfaction for whatever are their appetites at that moment?’

Emma Lucie intervened to enquire of Hervey’s culpability in this respect.

‘I have been learning Urdu these past six months, but have not yet had any chance to practise with a native speaker,’ he explained.

‘I am gratified to hear of it, Captain Hervey,’ said Somervile. ‘Urdu is as serviceable a choice to begin with as any.’

‘But you object to the preaching of the gospel, even in that tongue?’

‘I do.’

‘We want no repeat of the Vellore mutiny,’ added Lucie, signalling to his khansamah to have the soup dishes cleared.

‘Mutiny?’ Hervey’s voice carried the chill which the word had brought.

‘Not ten years ago,’ said Lucie, shaking his head as if the memory were personal and vivid. ‘Vellore is about a hundred miles distant, to the west of here, and less than half that distance from the border with Mysore. You must understand that at that time Madras and Mysore were in the midst of a most hostile dispute. The sepoys at Vellore rose during the night and killed very many of the European garrison. They would have prevailed, and thrown in their lot with those devils in Mysore had it not been for the address shown by Colonel Gillespie.’

Hervey was at once roused by the image of this gallant officer. Might he know more?

‘Indeed you might, Hervey; and right pleased you should be of it, for Gillespie was a cavalryman — though I cannot recall which regiment exactly—’

‘You should, Lucie, for it was the first King’s regiment of cavalry in the Company’s service,’ said the collector archly, surprised that a Madras writer should not know his history more perfectly. ‘The Nineteenth, Captain Hervey — light dragoons.’

‘Ah,’ said Hervey, mindful of the Nineteenth’s reputation, ‘the victors of Assaye — the battle which the Duke of Wellington counts higher than Waterloo in his estimation.’

‘Just so,’ replied the collector approvingly.

‘Well,’ coughed Lucie, taking up where he had faltered, ‘Colonel Gillespie’s regiment were about three leagues away at Arcot. Word was got to him and he set off at once with a portion of dragoons and a couple of galloper guns. With a determined assault he was able to overcome in excess of fifteen hundred mutineers. The bravest man in India, he was called.’