Company Of Spears

He folded the two sheets of vellum – he need not read them a second time for now – and replaced them in the envelope. Then he went to the window to distract himself with what remained of the sun’s glow ‘in the steep Atlantick stream’.

Emma returned, alone. ‘Eyre has just received a despatch from General Bourke. He will join us shortly.’ She sat down.

The khansamah entered.

‘Matthew, I’m so sorry: we evidently left you to your charming diversion without a drink in your hand.’

Hervey looked at the khansamah. ‘Chota peg, Jaswant; mehrbani,’ he said without thinking. The Somerviles spoke a very proper form of Bengali, whereas his Urdu was merely serviceable. It was in truth the emergent vocabulary of the cantonments which, since Warren Hastings’s day, the British – and the wives who increasingly accompanied them – preferred to the real vernacular. It was a compromise, easy enough for the sahibs and memsahibs to acquire, and easy enough for the little armies of servants – native speakers of any number of the languages of the sub-continent – to understand. Much as Hervey despised the practice, it had not been long before he had succumbed, so common was it in the garrison of Calcutta. If only he had spoken to Vaneeta in Bengali, instead of in the English that she spoke so well…

‘Matthew?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Jaswant asks if you prefer whiskey or brandy.’

‘Oh, I hadn’t … whiskey, thank you.’

The khansamah bowed and left.

‘You were thinking…’

Hervey sighed. ‘I was thinking – at that moment, at that precise moment – of Vaneeta.’

‘Is that a cause for sighing?’

Hervey shook his head a little. ‘No, it should not be. I never asked you: did you see her before you left?’

Before he himself had left, he had asked Emma to keep watch. He had settled a good income on Vaneeta: it was the very least he believed he could do (though a very good deal more than others did in like circumstances), but he had asked Emma to let him know at once if his former bibi fell into any sort of difficulty. Indeed, he had asked her to make whatever financial provision she felt necessary as soon as possible, and he would reimburse her at once. He had settled more than enough on Vaneeta for her to live in respectable comfort. Even though her standing in Calcutta would ever be that of bibi of a Feringhee, he had hated the idea that she might pass from one pair of military hands to another. The thought that she might even return to the haveli had reduced him almost to tears. He had at one stage – in a moment he now saw as beyond reason – thought to bring her back with him to England. And in a fit of distinct madness he had even contemplated marriage, remaining in Bengal, throwing in with the Company’s forces, perhaps even with Colonel Skinner’s regiment of irregular cavalry. Emma, who disdained the growing ‘respectability’ and aloofness of the new memsahibs, had received Vaneeta in her own drawing room, albeit discreetly for her visitor’s sake more than her own. She had liked Vaneeta, both for her wit, sensibility and charm, and for her evident restorative powers: Vaneeta had nursed Hervey back to health in every sense. Emma had never sought to persuade him of the unsuitability of marriage, or for that matter taking her to England as ayah to Georgiana. She had only wanted him to think in terms other than wholly of duty.

‘I did see her before I left, yes. She was very well.’

‘And…’

‘And what?’

Jaswant came with his whiskey and soda water.

Hervey took it, nodding his thanks. ‘She … she was happy?’

Emma looked a trifle frustrated. ‘It was not so many months after you left that Eyre and I sailed.’

Hervey looked anxious. ‘And so…’

‘Matthew, it is very hard for me if you will not finish your sentences!’

‘Was she appearing to … be recovered?’

Their parting – Hervey and Vaneeta – had indeed been a painful one. He had loved her as much as he was able; she had loved him completely.

Emma’s look of frustration only increased. ‘Matthew, I understand that you should be concerned for Vaneeta’s situation – but at this time? I made careful arrangements for her, with a very reliable party, as I explained in the letter I sent you, and for the rest … only time can do its work.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘Is there something in the letter that has prompted this – Kezia Lankester’s letter, I mean?’

Hervey shook his head. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Then in the circumstances I believe we should drop the matter.’

Hervey nodded. ‘It’s just … there are times…’

Emma leaned forward and placed a hand on his. ‘Of course there will be times, Matthew. You cannot help it. It does you credit, indeed. But to dwell on it is … imprudent. I dare say unseemly.’

Somervile returned, with a glass in his hand. ‘Great Ganesh, but Bourke’s oldwomanly about that place!’

Hervey and Emma looked at him, uncertain.

‘St Helena! He’s got a notion the French’ll seize it one day – make it a shrine or some such. Does it matter one iota if they do? How in the name of Shiva can it be worth the cost of placing one bombardier there? And why so urgent a dispatch, I can’t imagine.’

Hervey shook his head and raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘In all else I’ve found him a most sensible fellow.’

‘I am very glad of it,’ said Hervey. ‘You think, therefore, he will approve of my own dispatch?’

Somervile gestured with his glass. ‘Ah, your dispatch. Indeed – admirable, admirable. I have written this afternoon to Bathurst, in large measure your words, with a copy to the War Office – who, I trust, will send it to the Horse Guards. And I have written to the magistrates at Port Elizabeth and Graham’s-town commending their actions.’

Hervey looked pleased. ‘And you will commend Fairbrother?’

‘I shall. But first I would meet him. I very much like the sound of him. Indeed, had it not been for Colonel Somerset I should have invited him this evening. But it would have been unfair on Somerset to interpose to all intents and purposes a stranger when there is colony business to be about.’

Hervey would have preferred that Colonel Henry Somerset had not been invited at all. He had hoped for a reunion of friends; but then he reminded himself that Eyre Somervile, undoubted friend that he was, was now primarily his sovereign’s regent in the colony, to whom even General Bourke must answer in the first instance. There could probably be no occasion that was entirely – or even, he had to admit, and with regret, in any large measure – an affair of friends. He took comfort, however, in Fairbrother’s delightful assertion that where one gentleman was the subordinate of another, the superior would never mention it, and the inferior would never forget it.

Emma tilted her head, resigned. Her drawing rooms, be they in Madras, Calcutta, London, and now here, had ever been conference halls, or else offices, and occasionally even headquarters. ‘May we not first have a little conversation, my dear? I would ask Colonel Hervey how was his visit to the frontier.’

Somervile looked puzzled. ‘Did you not read the dispatch?’

Emma lowered her head emphatically. ‘A very little. If you recall, I only had opportunity to take it up this afternoon, and your secretary at once had need of it.’

‘Mm.’

‘So, Matthew, after you left these wonderful-sounding clay pits, did you encounter the fearsome and magnificent Xhosa?’

Hervey’s eyes widened. ‘I did, though I had no occasion to observe any magnificence. I must admit they very nearly worsted us in an ambuscade, and again the same day – in the middle of the night. They might have taken our camp had it not been for Mr Fairbrother.’

Emma quickened. ‘Oh, I must have the particulars, Matthew!’

Hervey knew full well that Emma would want the particulars. She had smelled more powder than many a man in England. He let the khansamah take his glass, accepted another, and began recounting the affair at the