Nizams Daughters

Madras; it seemed opportune when I did meet you, and little point then in my going to Calcutta. It was a misjudgement, I see now.’

‘Indeed,’ nodded Selden, ‘quite a misjudgement! There might no longer be the glittering path ahead, then?’ The tone was of sympathy, even if a little brutal.

Hervey hardly needed reminding of the personal consequences.

‘And so, who now has the title deeds?’ he asked, wanting to pick something from the ashes.

‘I do,’ replied Hervey, quick to respond to the suggestion of help. ‘But since they bear the duke’s name they will need to be transferred through a third party. My instructions were to request that you yourself fulfil that role. And, further, that you ensure any reference to the duke in the land registry is expunged.’

Selden smiled. ‘Hervey, you — or, I suppose, the duke’s agents — astonish me. Assuming that I would have access to the registry, you would wish me, say, to spill a bottle of ink on the offending page — or to set the entire ledger alight?’

‘Whatever is necessary,’ he replied bluntly; ‘but my principal had hoped that the original document might be delivered up to him. He is quite willing to meet all expenses.’ This last troubled him. He had rehearsed it many times so that it might be rendered lightly, but it smacked none the less of a crude bribe.

Selden saved him further discomfort by ignoring it — at least, on the surface. ‘My dear Hervey, I think it time I made a clean breast of one or two things too.’ They sat on a low wall by one of the fountains, its fall of water a further aid to their seclusion. ‘Now,’ he began, dabbing at the edge of his mouth with a silk square, ‘you must not suppose me to occupy any great office of state here — or even position of influence.’

Hervey looked worried. ‘But—’

‘Let me finish. I am the rajah’s salutri. There are few of us in India, and most of them are quacks, men who would scarce make a good farrier’s assistant. I know my worth in this respect, and so, I flatter myself, does the rajah. I am the only Englishman at his court, and since he places his trust in my facility with his horses he is inclined to seek my opinion on other matters. He’s not obliged to take it, of course.’

Hervey was not now so discouraged, but it was far from what he might have wished. ‘And do you have dealings with the Company?’

‘I am not a spy, if that’s what you mean. Periodically I have given my opinion on this matter or that when in Calcutta — as any loyal subject of the King would.’

Hervey thought for a moment, for Selden evidently had more to give. ‘Are you therefore able to help me dispose of the jagirs?’ he asked plainly.

Selden smiled again. ‘One of the many things I have learned in India is that what one supposes to be a secret is known as often in the bazaars.’

‘Are you telling me that the duke’s title to them is known of?’

‘Not, I suspect, in the bazaars, but the rajah knows — certainly.’

‘Oh,’ sighed Hervey, now even more anxious that his misjudgement would see his mission come to nought.

‘The jagirs are, indeed, something of an insurance to him.’

‘How so?’

‘The rajah has always supposed that as long as the Wellesley family held title to land in Chintal the country would be secure from predation by others.’

‘You mean he expects the Company would be prevailed on to come to his aid?’

‘Just so.’

‘I’m astonished. It would be little better than—’

‘There you go again, Matthew Hervey: false civilization, still to be sweated out!’

He frowned. ‘You will tell me next that the duke is somehow a party to this pretence!’

‘I would presume no such thing,’ replied Selden, a little archly. ‘But I tell you two things — or, rather, I ask you one thing first.’

‘Very well then,’ said Hervey, squarely.

‘Ask yourself why the duke has jagirs here in the first place.’

‘Is there reason why he should not? His family has wealth, and he was here a half-dozen years.’

‘Quite so,’ conceded Selden. ‘You have heard of Seringapatam?’

‘Of course: the Sixth still spoke of it when I joined.’

‘And well they might — the loot was prodigious!’

‘What has that to do with the duke? He put a stop to as much of it as he could, as is commonly known.’

Selden looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘See here, Hervey: I have no wish to sully the name of a great man — and one you serve so admirably. But there are persistent stories in India that he sequestered some of the prize- money that should by rights have gone to General Baird, the man whom he superseded after the capture of the fortress, and it’s supposed that the Chintal jagirs are part of that… shall we say, artifice? Do you not suppose that that might account in some degree for the needy discretion in disposing of them?’

Hervey protested that there were too many suppositions.

‘And I must further inform you,’ pressed Selden, ‘that the jagirs themselves have yielded meagre revenues these past years. The rajah supplements them handsomely.’

Slowly it began to occur to him that he might have been kept in the dark by Colonel Grant for no better reason than to conceal something that was — at best — unbecoming. And then he tumbled to the notion — but prayed it was not true — that his mission to gauge the effectiveness of the nizam’s army was no more than a diversion. He sighed heavily. How clever of the duke’s chief of intelligence if it were so, for in conniving with him at the diversion of the lance, he diverted himself from the truth that the business of the jagirs was Grant’s real purpose — and an infamous one at that.

Still he did not dare share this with Selden. Yet his look must have spoken of some sense of betrayal, for the salutri placed a hand on his shoulder and warned him of the consequences of judging things too keenly. ‘For I dare say the duke believed he did nothing dishonourable. He broke the Marathas at what might have been no little cost to his reputation, or even his life, had things not gone well. “To the victor the spoils”, Hervey!’

It was all supposition in any case. And, indeed, Hervey could ill afford too many scruples in his position.

Selden was prepared to agree with him — for the purposes, at least, of lifting his spirits for the time being. ‘Who, by the way, were you to meet with in Calcutta?’

Hervey wondered if this were information he might not rightly divulge. ‘I think it better if—’

‘It wasn’t Bazzard, was it?’

‘Why do you name him?’

Hervey’s surprise encouraged Selden to assume it was. ‘Because he is the writer who forwards the revenues to London.’

‘I should not say more.’

‘It makes no difference, my dear fellow,’ frowned Selden, ‘for Bazzard has been dead these past three months.’

‘Dead? You mean… killed?’

‘By the fever.’

Hervey saw at once some mitigation of his misjudgement. Going to Calcutta would have proved fruitless after all. A pity he had written already to Grant telling him it was his own choice. But at the same time the death of Bazzard meant the loss of his best means of recovering the situation. A picket officer’s duty in the Paris garrison seemed suddenly attractive compared with aiglets. At length he steeled himself to his purpose in Chintalpore: ‘Do I assume from this you are unable, and unwilling, to help me dispose of the jagirs?’

Selden let out a deep sigh. ‘Hervey, I’m not sure I would do this for anyone else. Let us not be too sentimental by recalling Androcles and the lion, but you were rare among your fellow officers in showing me more than sufferance. I have no notion how to begin the jagirs business, but begin I shall. It will take time, though. And meanwhile I advise you to be most attentive to the rajah, and not to give him any grounds to suspect you have come on business other than the lance. Play the simple soldier, in heaven’s name!’