Company Of Spears

care: Sam would never have wished such an event. But at least he had his science to compensate him. For the rest – even the roughest dragoon – it was a melancholy affair. No one of his troop had paraded with his own horse longer than a year, for they had brought none back with them from India; yet he had seen seasoned men cry at the destruction of a trooper not weeks in their charge. And, he was bound to concede, it made mockery of his petition to the Horse Guards that shipping troopers was good economy and sound practice, for now there would be both the expense of remounting and delay in the troop’s readiness for the field.

Hervey made his way back to the castle, but without the spring in his step with which he had left the rifle range. When he reached his quarters he found Johnson attending to the lees of their time at the frontier.

‘What’s up, sir?’

Hervey made no pretence about it. ‘Sixty-odd horses from the troop have got some wretched sickness that will destroy all but a dozen of them. And there’s nothing to be done.’

‘Porca Maria!‘

Hervey glowered at him. ‘You picked up a little Italian, then, in Stepney?’

Johnson shuffled uncomfortably.

‘Is there coffee?’

Johnson scuttled off, returning but a minute later with a tin mug. ‘Will this do for now, sir?’

Hervey nodded. There was doubtless good reason why they were using camp stores still.

‘Has there been any word from the lieutenant-governor? I’m dining with him this evening, and Lady Somervile.’

‘Who’s Lady Somervile?’ asked Johnson, forehead creased.

Hervey looked at him, shaking his head. ‘His wife!’

‘Ah never knew she were a Lady.’

Hervey’s eyes narrowed, uncertain whether Johnson was playing a game. ‘Of course she’s “Lady” now he’s “Sir”!’

Johnson’s brow remained furrowed. ‘You mean they made ‘er a “Lady” when they made ’im a “Sir”?’

Hervey shook his head again, disbelieving. ‘Johnson, how long have you moved in what is called good society? Don’t you yet know that the wife of a knight is always styled “Lady”?’

‘No.’

‘Astonishing. So, you imagined that when a knight – or a baronet, or whatever he is – married, his wife was made “Lady” by the King?

’ ‘No.’

‘What then?’

‘Ah just thought somebody wi’ a title married someone else wi’ a title.’

Hervey was lost for words. And then he began to smile – but to himself, for he would not have given offence for all the world: happy the man for whom dignities and styles were of such little consequence! ‘Well, now you know different’ (he would not say ‘better’). ‘And while we’re about the subject… ‘

‘Ay, sir?’

‘No matter.’

‘Ah’d like t’know.’

‘Really, Johnson, it is of such little consequence.’

‘But it’s been botherin’ thee.’

‘It has not been “bothering” me.’ Hervey found himself sighing. ‘But since we speak of it, there is a very little thing you might try to recall: if a lady is the daughter of a duke, or a marquess, or an earl, she is called “Lady” and then her name and then her husband’s name. If she is the wife of a baronet or a knight she is “Lady” and then just her husband’s name.’

‘Nobody ever told me that.’

‘And you never thought to ask?’

‘Ah never thought there were owt to ask!’

The logic was without flaw. ‘Truly, it is of no consequence.’ He took a long sip of coffee.

Johnson was coming to the end of his huswifery. He stood holding a torn shirt. ‘There were one thing ah al’a’s couldn’t fathom. Why were Mrs ‘Ervey called Lady ‘Enrietta ‘Ervey, cos tha weren’t “Sir” to other people?’

Hervey saw his explanation had been incomplete. Nor could he suppress a warm smile. ‘As I recall it, Johnson, you were the only one who ever called her “Mrs Hervey”. It was because her father had been an earl, and even if I had been Sir Matthew Hervey, she would still have used her own name first. Is all now clear?’

‘Ay, sir. An’ so Lady Katherine Greville…?’

Hervey stopped himself from clearing his throat. ‘Is the daughter of an earl, married to a knight.’

‘An’ Lady Lankester?’

‘The widow of a baronet.’

‘An’ so when she marries thee, sir, she’ll be … not Lady ‘Ervey?’

‘No, because I am neither baronet nor knight. She will be plain “Mrs Hervey”.’

Johnson put the shirt into a raffia box. ‘Won’t she mind that?’

If the question were impertinent, Hervey no longer recognized impertinence in his groom. Long years had convinced him of Johnson’s heart, and the late trouble – the late misunderstanding – with Italians and coral had not altered his opinion in any degree. ‘I must trust not.’

‘Ah don’t like that dog o’ Lady Lankester’s.’

‘The dog is perfectly amenable if you don’t startle her.’

‘An’ ah don’t think she likes me.’

‘She hasn’t bitten you?’

Johnson looked puzzled.

‘The dog, she hasn’t bitten you has she?’

‘Ah meant Lady Lankester.’

Hervey began hearing the same doubting tone with which Emma had pressed him in Gloucestershire. He tried to be cheery. ‘She’s only met you but two or three times!’

‘Ah reckon she won’t want me abaht after yer both wed, sir.’

So that was it! He had never imagined … ‘Johnson, I may safely assure you – and you must believe it – that I shall never dispense with your services until you yourself wish it.’ A smile came to his lips. ‘Or Bow-street requires it!’

Hervey went to the Somerviles that evening a happier man. There was nothing he could do about the ‘epidemic disorder’, as Sam Kirwan was officially describing it: the horses were in the best of hands, and Serjeant- major Armstrong could be relied on to enforce the quarantine. There was evidently a supply of remounts – though he doubted fifty would be to hand at once – and if other duties detained him, he could certainly rely on Lieutenant Fearnley to make sound purchases. As to the money – the War Office must be only too aware of the contingencies of campaigning. There had been no negligence, no neglect, and but for the inevitable and perfectly proper enquiries by some clerk in Downing Street he need have no disquiet in that direction. Above all, the business at the frontier had been both exhilarating and gainful: he had, by his own reckoning and Eyre Somervile’s preliminary reading of his report (a brief interview in the late afternoon had been all that could be managed in the lieutenant-governor’s day of inspections), accomplished what he had been sent there to do. Moreover, he had helped instigate certain measures to ease the immediate Xhosa nuisance. All this he could take the greatest satisfaction in, the more so for its standing in sharp contrast with events of the year before (Portugal, he trusted, would ever be his lowest ebb). He felt in large measure restored. And the gains had not all been His Majesty’s. The country, the Xhosa and above all Edward Fairbrother had taught him a great deal more about the soldier’s art. He had never once thought that he possessed all the art there was to have, but long years in the Peninsula and the tumultuous days of Waterloo, and then the extraordinary campaigns in the East, had given him a certainty in his own proficiency which, in truth, the late unhappy business in Portugal had not diminished. The affair with the Xhosa had been but a scrape, albeit a