'Oh, indeed. They sang well in church, but I have no illusions.'
Her husband took another glass of Madeira. 'And I have observed how they are with their officers, some of whom are as stupid as half those in parliament, yet the little that is good in them is somehow magnified by the connection. And these men' – he nodded to the dozens of chevrons about the place – 'would no doubt be hurling bricks at magistrates were they not in regimentals. Yet here they all are, as if the same family. And those we saw on the road here without chevrons just biding their time until they're allowed a bit further under the blanket. I tell you, it's a system that defies reckoning. I've mocked its little absurdities often enough, but I half believe the Company could go anywhere with men like this.'
Emma sighed. 'I hope, therefore, that the Company will remain in ignorance of its treasure.'
Somervile touched her arm, for him a public gesture of unusual warmth.
'Good afternoon Mr Somervile, sir. Good afternoon, ma'am.' Armstrong's greeting recalled the two of them.
'Good afternoon, Serjeant-Major – and Mrs Armstrong,' replied Somervile, with a look of genuine pleasure.
Emma smiled as wide. 'Oh, please, don't on my account,' she said to Caithlin as she curtsied. Emma's Indian maids might bow gracefully, but they never curtsied, and, in any case, she could never think of Caithlin Armstrong as of inferior status. 'Especially, my dear, not in your condition.'
Caithlin and her husband glanced with customary pride at the swelling beneath her dress.
'I should say in our condition,' added Emma, with the same look of pride.
'Oh, Mrs Somervile,' exclaimed Caithlin, her melodious Cork never stronger. 'How happy I am for you! Is that why Miss Joynson is to be your companion, then, ma'am?'
No fact remained in the possession of but two people in Calcutta for more than a day. 'It is,' said Emma, agreeably. She could not very well add 'ostensibly', although indeed she might. Hervey's suggestion of taking in Frances Joynson for a while had come at a propitious time, though Emma certainly felt in no need of a companion.
Somervile himself was looking rather embarrassed, especially since Armstrong was smiling in a manly, confidential sort of way. There were affairs, indeed, that transcended all barriers. That did not trouble him in the slightest – Somervile was more impatient of the confines of rank than most men – but 'country matters', as he was still wont to call them, he was not at home with.
'What is the news from the east, sir?' asked Armstrong, thinking to save further talk of domestic affairs.
Somervile shook his head. 'Not good, I'm afraid, Serjeant-Major. The business is taking longer than was imagined.' He did not say by whom imagined, nor that there were some who never imagined it otherwise – the commander-in-chief, for one. 'And I fear that our embarrassment there will encourage others to…' (he noticed both wives listening intently) 'to… become rather impudent.'
Armstrong nodded. 'Well, sir, I for one shall be making in the opposite direction tomorrow with Captain Hervey. And pleased of it, too. I've no partiality for fighting with trees everywhere you turn. That Burma is no place for cavalry.'
The band had struck up a lively jig, and the commander-in-chief had rejoined the major. 'A capital display, Joynson; capital. My compliments to you. But I fear I must return to my desk. The despatches from Rangoon this morning were not at all felicitous.'
'But you still do not think the Sixth will be needed, Sir Edward?'
'No, I think not. If Campbell can break himself out of Rangoon then all should be well, even if takes some weeks more – months, even. And break out he's bound to do at some stage. But the country isn't suitable to develop cavalry operations. I've sent him reinforcements, and if need be, for escorts and the like, I'll send one of the Madras light horse.'
Paget began taking his leave, shaking hands with Mr and Mrs Lincoln, and several others besides, his smile in contrast with the earnestness of his manner with Joynson. As they reached the door he turned again to Joynson, and his former look returned. 'Things are by no means settled among the country powers hereabouts, and our difficulties in the east will only encourage them. I want a handy force here in Bengal if trouble ensues. I have to be able to count on King's cavalry. You'll have the Sixth in best condition, Eustace?' 'I'm sure we understand that, General.'
Sir Edward nodded. 'Hervey will soon be at Dehli, I should imagine?'
'The troop left on Tuesday. Hervey goes tomorrow.'
Sir Edward nodded again. 'A good choice, Hervey. Ochterlony will like him.'
Joynson raised an eyebrow. 'And what's equally to the point, General, Hervey will like Ochterlony!'
Sir Edward smiled. 'Oh, yes, indeed. That is equally important!'
CHAPTER TEN
THE RESIDENT Dehli, three weeks later Sir David Ochterlony, the Honourable East India Company's political resident at the court of Shah Mohammed Akbar Rhize Badshah, the Great Mughal, was sixty-six years old. He had entered the Bengal army when he was not yet twenty and had spent his entire service in Hindoostan. He had fought the French, the Marathas and the Nipalis, and each time he had added garlands to his reputation as both a soldier and a diplomatist. He had been a major-general since 1814 and resident since 1803. His name was held in the highest esteem – venerated, even – throughout India, although it was the opinion of some members of the Bengal council, and Lord Amherst himself, that his retirement was overdue. Indeed, if any man gave the lie to the oft-heard native lament that a grey hair on the head of a European was never to be seen in India, it was Ochterlony – although, ironically, he had been born and bred in America. Hervey reported to the residency towards the end of the afternoon, within an hour of entering the great old Mughal capital, but already he had formed the strongest impression of decay and ruin in Dehli – of desolation, even. The city walls, half of stone, half of brick, were in poor repair, tombs and mausoleums were everywhere in dilapidation, grass grew long all about. In places there was a smell of corruption as bad as in Calcutta, and his guide told him there was not a house from where the jackal's cry could not be heard of a night. The centuries of depredations, the sackings and the looting, the sieges and the slaughter had brought the once sumptuous imperial city to little more than a tract of dreary and disconsolate tombs.
'Sahib, here nothing lasts,' said Hervey's guide. 'There is much tribulation and little joy. In years past, the living thought only of reposing after death in splendid sepulchres, and their descendants have thought only of destroying what was intended for eternity.'
And Hervey had half shivered in the chill of that judgement.
But the guide had not been melancholy. He had spoken with the indifferent acceptance of fate that was the mark of his religion. And indeed there was cheer in his judgement, for he told Hervey that things would have been immeasurably worse without Sir David Ochterlony. 'Ochterlony-sahib is greatest man in all of empire after Great Mughal himself, sahib.' Hervey considered himself well used by now to native blandishments, whether from gholam or pandit. Perhaps, though, in the living memory of Hindoostan – and certainly that of his guide – Sir David Ochterlony had a reasonable claim to greatness. It had been he who had kept Jashwant Rao, the Holkar of Indore, the most powerful of the Maratha chiefs, at bay two decades before, while the Wellesleys made war on the Scindia and the Bhonsla. Greatness, indeed, did not seem too inapt a word as Hervey now contemplated the residency, a classical palazzo on Chandnee chouk near the Lahore gate. It spoke of a confident power, for it had nothing to do with the art of the empire of Tamerlane, only that of the Honourable Company.
As he rode up to its gates, the quarter-guard turned out and presented arms. The havildar saluted and stood his ground, so Hervey dismounted and obliged him by inspecting his men – smart Bengali sipahis, red-breasted, bare-legged, straps and pouches whitened, muskets burnished. Then a young ensign, very fair-skinned, came. He wore a frock coat and forage hat, as if on picket duty at St James's, and he saluted as sharply, introducing himself and then conducting Hervey to Sir David Ochterlony's quarters. It was, truly, just as if he were arriving at the Horse Guards again.
For weeks Hervey had wondered what he would find at the residency, so many had been the stories. But all he knew for certain was that Sir David was an elderly major-general, and so he composed himself accordingly: the usual military formalities, the stuff of any general headquarters – a brief interview, the presentation of compliments,
