Hervey thought it indelicate, and unsafe, to proceed.
'In any case, her reputation has not been remarked on in the drawing rooms yet, so her behaviour cannot be so very bad.' Emma sipped at her champagne. 'Your name has been spoken of, however, Matthew.'
'Oh yes?' He intended to sound only the merest degree interested… curious. 'Lately, at the general's.'
Hervey simply raised an eyebrow and took another sip at his champagne.
'I fancy by the time Sir Ivo's bride is brought here it will be the talk of every drawing room.'
Hervey put his glass down, scarcely troubling now to hide his real sentiments. 'Emma, what is the matter with Calcutta? In Madras-'
'She visits, Matthew. That is what is the matter. And do not be angry with me because I tell you.'
He sighed. 'I am not angry with you, Emma. When I first came to India, almost ten years ago, things were… I am just astonished at so much canting.'
Emma would not be drawn. 'And another thing, Matthew. You have refused all society with Bishop Heber.'
Hervey frowned impatiently and held out his glass to the khitmagar. 'Please do not think I include Heber in my strictures, Emma. He is a good man from all I hear. But I do not feel the need of a bishop's society.'
'He only presses his claim on your acquaintance because your Mr Keble wrote to him.' 'Mr Keble presumes a deal too much.' 'Oh, Matthew!'
She touched a nerve, but he was not minded to give in. 'I sometimes think that Mr Keble believes the prospect from his parsonage window is the only one in the world.'
She frowned again. 'And you have seen so much more of the world!' 'Yes; I have.'
Emma sighed deeply. Had she not known him better it might have been a sigh of despair. Instead it was the mildly rebuking but tolerant sigh that his sister might have breathed. 'Then I should be careful not to see excess of it, Matthew.'
Eyre Somervile returned, to Hervey's relief. 'Well, it is done. I have sent my opinion to both Amherst and Paget. Doubtless they'll think it unreliable. But nothing I've sent them to date has been other than borne out by events. Paget's no fool. He may be a little too ready to defer to Amherst, but he's no fool.'
'You are perfectly certain of your intelligence?' Hervey held his gaze until an answer came.
Somervile inclined his head very slightly. 'There is, of course, the possibility that it was sent to me with but one object. In which case I might well precipitate an evacuation of Rangoon for no reason. That is what you allude to, I imagine? This I have laid out in my memoranda to Amherst and Paget. The veracity of the report is unknowable, unless some corroboration is received, but the possibility of it is certain, and in consequence the peril of Campbell's force. One way or another, it is imperative to act. That is the material point.'
Hervey glanced at Emma, and smiled. 'Somervile, for once I do not fret at not marching towards the sound of the guns. I fear it will be a wretched business either way. Campbell is a brave man, but I give it as my opinion that he has no place in command of a campaign such as this. And I for one am done with such men.'
Emma looked startled, but her husband had heard this opinion often enough these past two months. 'My dear,' he said, half smiling and taking a glass from the khitmagar. 'You must know that we have a dinner companion of very refractory military disposition. I do have a notion that he believes all between him and the Duke of Wellington to be but deadwood.'
Hervey frowned. But as things stood, he felt little inclination to deny it.
'Come, let us eat, then,' said Somervile, content in the knowledge that there was no more a man in his position could do for the moment. 'I would hear of how things are with the regiment.' Emma rose.
Hervey followed, though not so nimbly as once he might. 'Does it matter very much how things are? Whatever course Campbell chooses, there's no place for cavalry in it.'
'Hah!' Somervile stepped aside to let Emma lead them to the dining room. 'You make the same mistake as those in council who seem capable of looking in only one direction at a time. In India, Hervey, as you must surely know, one must be Janus-like with regard to whence the next blow shall come. Let me tell you what has been happening among the country powers while our eyes have been diverted eastwards…' Next morning, Hervey rode out for the first time since returning to Calcutta. Private Johnson had brought Gilbert to his bungalow just before dawn, as Hervey took his chota hazree – sweet tea and figs. He had never, as a rule, taken anything but tea before morning exercise, even in the cold season, but he had felt weaker than he supposed he would on rising. He cursed the time it was taking for him to regain his full strength. The shoulder had, to all appearances, knitted together well enough, but the fever had left him like a woman in the first gravid months – dizzy, puking, listless. It had come and gone, and each time seemed worse, but in the last weeks he had felt himself recovering his proper spirits with each day. It was just the mornings, now, that reminded him there was still a course to run.
'Is tha sure tha's all right, sir?' enquired Johnson, watching him, curious.
Gilbert's manners were not as he would have wanted, and Hervey seemed unable to stop the jogging.
'To tell the truth, Johnson, I'd as soon be listening to one of the chaplain's sermons.' 'That bad, sir.'
'Perhaps not. But it can't go on.' He tried once more to sit easy, to persuade the gelding to get off its toes, but it made no difference. 'What have you been doing with him all these months?' 'Swap 'orses, sir?' 'Don't be impertinent.'
Johnson smiled. Ten years they had been together now – more, almost eleven – longer than any officer and groom in the Sixth, or in memory indeed. He had no pleasure in his captain's infirmity, but he could at least take satisfaction in the tables being turned just a little. 'As tha 'eard t'RSM's to be wed?'
The dodge worked. Hervey looked astonished. 'You would as well persuade me that the sar'nt-major is to take the cloth.' He flicked his long schooling whip at Gilbert's quarters in mounting exasperation.
There was little reason why he should believe it. Mr Lincoln had been regimental serjeant-major for fifteen years. It was generally imagined that he was the senior in the whole of the cavalry. Why should he suddenly feel the need of a wife? Except that Johnson's canteen intelligence was almost invariably accurate… 'I'd put any money on it, sir.'
'Who is she?' demanded Hervey, sounding almost vexed. 'Widder o' one o' t'Footy's quartermasters.' Hervey, for all his nausea and discomposure, managed an approving smile. 'She must be a redoubtable woman. How is it known? Has there been any announcement?'
Johnson became circumspect; there were canteen confidences to safeguard. 'Mr Lincoln saw Major Joynson yesterday an' asked 'is leave to marry.'
Hervey smiled again. A clerk with an ear to the door, and a thirst to be quenched by selling tattle in the wet canteen. Things hadn't changed. Not that Johnson would have paid for his information. Hervey had learned long ago that Johnson received word from many a source because the canteen attributed to him considerable powers of prophecy and intercession. 'What a tamasha that will be, then. And colonel and RSM wed in the same year.' Then he frowned. 'Oh, I do hope this doesn't mean Mr Lincoln intends his discharge.'
It was a curious thing, and Hervey knew as well as the next man, and better than most, that 'new blood' was as necessary in the officers and senior ranks of a cavalry regiment as it was in its horses. And yet with Mr Lincoln it was different. It was scarcely conceivable that there could be any want in the performance of his duties, and his grey hairs served only to add distinction to his appearance. In any case, the RSM would yield to no one in the jumping lane at the end of a field day. To many, indeed, Mr Lincoln was the regiment. No one in the Sixth had served longer, though his actual record of service, with its attestation date, had been conveniently lost years ago.
CI bet that's not what Serjeant-Major Deedes thinks,' said Johnson, screwing up his face.
That was the problem. There could only be the one crown, and for as long as the admirable Lincoln wore it above his stripes no other could. Deedes was next in seniority, and had been for five years or more, and behind him were others wondering if the crown would ever be theirs to wear before they were obliged to leave the colours. One of those, indeed, was Armstrong. Hervey had never given it much thought before. Could he imagine Geordie Armstrong filling Lincoln's boots? It was pointless his making any comparison, for so different were the two men. Except, perhaps, that Armstrong's formation had been at Lincoln's hands as much as anyone's.
There was, of course, one man who would by now have been the acknowledged heir. Serjeant Strange could have worn the crown, a worthy successor in every respect, except that by now another regiment might have made a claim on him, or even a field commission might have come his way. It was nigh on ten years ago, in a corner of the battlefield at Waterloo, that Strange had demonstrated his singular worth – and had lost his life doing so. Hervey still thought about that day, and his own part in Strange's fall. He asked himself the same questions, and the answers were always as uncertain.
