Company Of Spears

uncertainty of getting the regiment, the offer of command at the Cape, the manly dinner: there would inevitably be but one purpose in calling at Holland

Park…

He climbed into the chaise, not speaking. ‘Hounslow, Major Hervey?’ asked the coachman, holding open the door.

Hervey sighed. ‘Hounslow, Peter; quick as you can.’

X

THE SERPENT’S COILS

Gloucestershire, three days later

Sezincote was the strangest house that Hervey had ever seen. It resembled the Pavilion at Brighton, with its Moghul turrets and tracery, its dome and peacock-tail arches, and yet it was very evidently a gentleman’s house rather than a place of entertainment. The grounds called to mind the abundant gardens of the governor-general’s residence in Calcutta, with all manner of plants patently not native to the country. On the balustrades of an ornamental bridge over a stream that watered the ‘paradise garden’ were little statues of Brahmin bulls – Nandi, ‘the happy one’ – and at a remove from the house itself stood Sir Charles Cockerell’s bedroom, an octagon fashioned like a rajah’s tent, tall poles supporting a canopy, and arch-windows, and a chattri – a minaret – in the centre. All was of local stone, but dyed yellow in the fashion of the native houses of Rajasthan. Yet within was as classical as any of the fashionable houses of not-so-distant Bath – ‘Greek revival’, as Somervile tersely dismissed it. Twenty years before Hervey had first set foot on the Madras beach (Somervile told him) Colonel John Cockerell, the present owner’s brother, had returned from Bengal and bought the house from the Earl of Guildford to be near his friend Warren Hastings. On his death the house had passed to his youngest brother, who had been with him in Bengal, first as an official of the Company, later as a founder of the most successful of the Calcutta agency houses established to handle the affairs of Englishmen in India. Now Charles Cockerell was Sir Charles, denizen of Messrs Paxton, Cockerell and Trail of Austin Friars in the City – and member of parliament for Evesham.

‘Wellington’s brother got him the baronetcy,’ explained Somervile, not entirely unkindly, as a footman unpacked Hervey’s valises. ‘I am very glad you could come. Cockerell’s is not a bad ear to have.’

‘Was it he who had the house Indianized, or his brother?’

‘It was he. Another brother was the architect, with the Daniells. And Repton, I think, did the garden.’

‘I liked it very much, after first overcoming my surprise.’

‘The King visited, when he was Prince of Wales, which is why he decided on his pleasure dome in Brighton, apparently.’

‘Indeed?’ said Hervey, staring rather absently from a window towards the formal water gardens. ‘I look forward to taking a good turn about the grounds tomorrow.’ He turned sharply, as if steeling himself. ‘What is the order for this evening?’

‘A small party, I understand. Last night was rather a formal, parliamentary business, though not disagreeable. Your affair of the gunpowder was all the talk. I wish I had known it was your affair. You must tell me all of it later. I was vastly diverted by the notion of Westminster’s being blown to the skies.’

Hervey looked at him, with a frowning challenge.

‘Diverted by the thought that so many could imagine it possible. But we’re in Tory country now, to be sure. As well not try saying “Catholic”, Hervey. “Papist” is preferred among the gentry. They would have feted you last night, had they known.’

Hervey shrugged. ‘That is as well. I should be loath to disabuse them and mistreat Sir Charles’s hospitality.’

Somervile smiled conspiratorially. ‘Oh, and I should say: there’s music again, but Lady C has dismissed the band which entertained us so agreeably last night, and the party’s to provide it instead. You’ll not be expected to perform, though; not on your first night here. Emma and I have something, and your Lady Lankester.’

Hervey frowned again. ‘Somervile, she is not my Lady Lankester.’

‘Ah, then you have had second thoughts?’

‘Not at all, only that it’s a presumption to speak that way. I rather think I should not have said anything now. It was ungallant.’

Somervile threw an orange at him hard. ‘Oh, perfect knight!’

Hervey fumbled the catch.

‘Hands not what they were, Major Hervey?’

‘They are quite safe, I assure you.’

Somervile rose. ‘Come down at once when you’re dressed to meet our host. It’s a pity you did not arrive a little earlier: Emma and your lady were teaing together in the orangery – rather a useful kala jugga, I should have thought.’

Somervile was being frivolous, Hervey knew full well, but Somervile’s frivolity was invariably laced with substantial intent. What the substance was this time, he could not be sure: but he would have need of a kala jugga – a secluded place – at some moment in the party. He most certainly hoped he would.

‘And that dog of hers!’

‘Dog?’ said Hervey, as if this would mean some recalculation. ‘I did not know there was a dog.’

‘If you could call it that. An Italian greyhound.’

‘I think them delightful!’

‘Then you had better go to it, for it bit me.’

Hervey laughed. ‘It sensed an unadoring presence perhaps?’

‘Mm. Shall you wear regimentals this evening?’ ‘I had not thought to. Would it be remiss?’ ‘It is a private party. But our host might deem it a courtesy.’

No one seemed to be out much in regimentals in London, Hervey remarked, but the country was always a late follower of fashion. ‘Very well.’

‘No doubt it will serve your purpose, too. What female heart can withstand a red coat?’

‘Somervile, you read too many novels! And my coat is blue, not red.’

‘It is metaphorically red. And I was quoting from the Edinburgh Review, or are Whiggish journals beneath you?’ He took his copy from the pocket of his coat. ‘I at once resolved to save it for you when I saw it: “What female heart can withstand a red coat? I think this should be part of female education. As boys have the rocking horse to accustom them to ride, I would have military dolls in the nursery, to harden their hearts against officers and red coats.”’

‘Who writes such nonsense?’

‘Hervey, my dear fellow, I could have written it myself! But we know that Lady Lankester must not have had military dolls in the nursery to harden her heart against red coats – though I should like to know what it would take to raise that heart’s temperature above freezing!’

With some force Hervey threw back the orange (which his friend caught deftly with one hand). ‘Somervile! I wonder that you asked her to accompany you at all with so low an opinion of her.’

‘Not low, my dear Hervey, not low. Her temperature is of no concern to me.’

The acquaintance between the Somerviles and Kezia Lankester had begun firmly and happily in Calcutta, and after the death of Sir Ivo, Emma and her husband had stood not as mere friends but in loco familiae. Hervey understood this full well. What sense of obligation rather than true affection maintained their acquaintance now he did not know, but in truth it mattered not. That acquaintance had propelled