Company Of Spears

A khitmagar had begun clearing the sweet dishes, and another brought one of Hervey’s favourites, which first he had tasted at the rajah’s feast – Mandaliya, the entrails of young lambs, filled with marrow and spices known only to Emma’s Bengali, and roasted over charcoal. The rajah, a man of startling sensibility and vocabulary, had spoken of Mandaliya as ‘the very apotheosis of taste’. Hervey smiled at the recollection of it, such perfect erudition, such gentlemanlike manner. He had so much liked the rajah – his courage, humanity, integrity, each of a rare degree. He wished he had travelled to Chintal again during the long years of that second time in India…

He braced himself. ‘Lady Lankester – she will drive to Gloucestershire with you?’

It was quite a turn of conversation, but Emma was content enough to leave the question of portraits – for the time being, at least. ‘She takes her own carriage, but yes, she will drive with us. Might you accompany us?’

Hervey did not know how to respond. Here was an unexpected, but not unlooked for, opportunity to present himself, and yet there was the business of the lieutenant-colonelcy to press, as well as the outbreak in the horse lines. ‘I had thought Saturday … but I rather think I might, if duties permit.’

Emma looked at him quizzically, though he did not see it, and then the conversation passed at Somervile’s prompting to the week’s obituaries, of which Hervey was still ignorant. And then, as it always did, to India.

Hervey began wondering if he would see India again, or yet if he even wanted to. They had been long years in Bengal, but wholly restorative. He regretted he had never gone back to Chintal to see the rajah, and indeed some of the other friends he had made there. But he had feared the raj kumari (if she were not to be quite the death of him) would somehow torment him to destruction. It had all been so long ago – ten years. And, of course, in Calcutta there had been Vaneeta. She had had but a small measure of the blood of Isabella Delgado’s countrymen, but mixed with that of Bengal, Vaneeta’s company had frequently been sublime…

He woke. Sublime: as indeed were the confections which now followed the Mandaliya, more sublime even than the Madhuparka, the honeyed milk which accompanied them. They drank the best hock and burgundy too, exactly as in Calcutta. Hervey sighed inwardly. Yes, he would like to see India again, where all tastes were intense and there was no ‘coyness in pleasure’. Where, indeed, he might eat lotus and forget all ‘obligation’.

When Jaswant appeared with coffee at the end of the feast, Somervile laid down his napkin and pushed back his chair. ‘Come, Hervey, we shall take our coffee in my library. I would have you see the campaign furniture I have assembled!’

Hervey glanced at Emma.

‘I will join you in a while, Matthew. From what I saw earlier it will take Eyre half an hour to assemble his bed.’

‘Nonsense!’ protested her husband. ‘The catalogue says it may be assembled with one hand.’

Emma smiled challengingly.

* * *

In the library, a big room half filled with expedition baggage, Somervile was at once animated. He was a scholar of very considerable learning, and yet to Hervey he had often seemed never more content than when he was cocked atop a good horse, pistols at his belt and bandits in sight. Somervile handed him John Durham’s catalogue, with its indications of what he had bought for the campaign in Cape Colony (not, to Hervey’s knowledge, that there was any campaign in prospect).

He began reading the preamble. His own camp furniture in the Peninsula had been modest, for portage was ever a problem (he lost far more than eventually he returned to England with), and in India, where portage had been legion, his furniture had been substantial. Mr Durham’s exhortation to potential customers was of another world, however:

In encampments, persons of the highest distinction are obliged to accommodate themselves in such temporary circumstances, which encampments are ever subject to. Hence every article of an absolutely necessary kind must be made very portable, both for package and that such utensils should not retard rapid movement, either after or from the enemy. The articles of cabinet work used in such services are, therefore, each of them required to be folded in the most compact manner that can be devised; yet this is to be done in such a way as that when they are opened out they will answer their intended purpose. There are therefore camp or field bedsteads, camp chairs, desks, stools and tables…

‘My dear Somervile, don’t you imagine that the position of lieutenant-governor shall require you to be resident in Cape-town, and that if you travel it shall be to where there are His Majesty’s subjects, and therefore the usual comforts?’

Somervile looked dismayed. ‘I do not so imagine! You don’t suppose that Cape Colony is pegged out like a gymkhana. I shall need to beat its bounds! Indeed, I have every expectation of being instructed to extend those bounds!’

Hervey knew that at two bottles Somervile could become positively venturesome, though he had observed the same spirit at nothing more than a cup of arabica. The authorities would know his ardour well, as much as they did his scholarship in native affairs, and so he began wondering if his friend’s appointment to an otherwise undistinguished station did indeed presage more active business.

‘See first this bed, Hervey.’

Somervile had evidently been engaged in earlier practice, since he was able to unfasten and refasten the retaining hooks, pull the several levers and engage the various locking joints with facility, until there stood in the middle of the room a serviceable-looking single (occasional double) camp bed. When he threw the drapes over the canopy the effect was more of permanence than of the field. Hervey felt sure it would have been appropriate for the governor-general of Bengal, let alone beating about the dusty bounds of the Cape of Good Hope. ‘You do expect to take the odd bearer with you?’

Somervile failed to recognize the tease. ‘Yes, yes, of course. But I want to be certain of my equipage.’

Hervey nodded, smiling. ‘That is very proper. What is in those large chests?’

‘Ah, yes: my dining room.’ Somervile lifted a lid to reveal four knocked-down, upholstered chairs. ‘There are twelve in all. And a table in yonder flat box.’

There were also a brass-mounted secretaire, a travelling bookcase with inset-brass grille doors, a caned mahogany sofa-bed, two folding armchairs, a mahogany washbasin, and a travelling bidet which Somervile unfolded from a leather carrying case no bigger than a lady’s portmanteau. The whole effect was, indeed, of serviceability, of practicality and economy of labour (if not of materials), so that, as the blandishments of Mr Durham’s trade card had it, when ‘persons of the highest distinction are obliged to accommodate themselves in such temporary circumstances which encampments are ever subject to’, they might do so in the greatest possible comfort. Hervey smiled even broader. He could picture Sir Eyre Somervile K.H. entertaining nobly both Dutch and English settlers in a style they almost certainly did not enjoy at their own farms – and perhaps even a native prince or two, who would surely be overawed by a demonstration of English cabinet-making skill. Or was the colony rather more civilized than he supposed? It had been Dutch-settled for two centuries and more. ‘Somervile I am all admiration. This will have come at no small a price. Your devotion to duty is ever entire. I might wish, indeed, that I were coming with you!’

His old friend, who had been giving every impression of an eccentric among his collection of curiosities, spun round and fixed him with the same intense look that Hervey had seen in India when the wind of necessity changed suddenly. ‘I wish you were. Indeed, I hope you will. I have need of you.’

Hervey quickened. ‘My dear Somervile, I think you forget all that has recently passed. I have learned a little humility from the Portuguese affair – and a desire for a little ease!’

Somervile began fiddling with the handle to a secret compartment in a dispatch box. ‘If by that you mean you are intent on toadying your way to advancement then I caution you against it very decidedly.’

Hervey frowned. ‘It implies no toadying at all, merely the recognition that to move a mound of clay is better done with leverage rather than taking a kick at it.’

‘And a good deal of money.’

Hervey did not hesitate. Indeed, he almost spat the words: ‘I’ve nothing but contempt for it.’ It was the first time he had admitted it since the prospect of the lieutenant-colonelcy had arisen – even to himself.

Somervile sprang the secret compartment, as in some show of revelation. ‘There! I think you had better