'I am certain it has not.'
She turned to the Fifty-fifth's colonel. 'You are all three well acquainted, so I have read.'
'Indeed we are, Lady Somervile,' said Colonel Mill, bowing in return to Hervey.
'The fellowship of black powder?'
They all shared her smile.
'Eyre would give anything to be admitted a full member,' she said, shaking her head. 'I am certain of it. He is increasingly fretful at office.'
As a rule, Emma Somervile gave nothing away except to those she counted the surest of friends. Hervey detected more than jest in the remark, and so concluded that Colonel Mill had gained the Castle's confidence. And he was glad of it, for Mill was an officer of unimpeachable fighting record – the West Indies, the Peninsula, Waterloo; and now Umtata.
'I should have thought the recent affair at the frontier enough to satisfy anyone, at least for a while,' said the Fifty-fifth's colonel, looking like a man who considered such things occupational hazards rather than sport.
Emma sighed. 'I fear it has merely whetted his appetite.'
A khitmagar advanced with a tray of champagne.
As Hervey took a glass, Emma turned to him, confidentially. 'I am so very sorry to hear about poor Caithlin Armstrong. Most distressed, indeed. The loveliest of people. And the serjeant-major . . . You have told him by now, I suppose?'
Hervey nodded.
'I simply cannot imagine what will now be the fate of those children. Shall they go back to Ireland, do you think?'
Hervey's sigh echoed Emma's. 'I don't know. For the time being the Lincolns – you remember? – have charge of them, but I fancy it can't be too long an arrangement. The elder boy will go to the Duke of York's school, and the second one in a year or so. The girls . . .' (he shook his head) 'Armstrong has no family.'
'Shall he have to leave the service?'
Hervey's eyebrows rose. 'Great heavens, I hope not. The service is exactly what he needs to bind himself to after such a thing!'
Emma was a little taken aback at Hervey's surprise, for he himself had quit the service in like circumstances (not that it was a course she approved of). 'Well, he is fortunate in having such friends as the Lincolns. And, I might add, you.'
Hervey swallowed. What friend might he be in Canada with the Eighty-first?
'And now,' said Emma resolutely, squeezing his arm, 'I must introduce you to our new arrivals.'
'Colonel Smith?'
'And his most intriguing wife!'
But Emma's guests scarcely needed introduction. Although 'Smith' was a commonplace of the Army List, and Hervey had not seen the colonel's lantern-jaw in many a year (and certainly not since Waterloo), he would have known him anywhere. As for the arresting Latin features of Mrs Smith, a Peninsula-bride of just fifteen, his acquaintance was entirely by repute. But everyone in the army knew Harry and Juana Smith.
'May I introduce Colonel Hervey, who commands the Cape Mounted Rifles,' said Emma.
The colonels bowed, and Mrs Smith curtsied.
'Hervey, I fancy we must have met?' said Colonel Smith confidently.
'We have. I think at the Bidassoa.'
Colonel Smith was perhaps half a dozen years Hervey's senior, and wore the dark green of the 95th Rifles, in which corps he had risen largely by field promotion in the thick of the fighting in the Peninsula and the two Americas. 'I fancy it must have been,' he replied. And then, breaking into a wry smile, added, 'You, however, would have kept your feet dry, I imagine?'
The army had crossed many rivers in Spain, but the Bidassoa had been a considerable splash. 'I imagine I did,' conceded Hervey, content on this occasion to allow the infantry its customary sense of superiority in bearing privations.
But Colonel Smith was no conformist in that regard. 'I read of your exploits of late at Badajoz. An extraordinary business.'
'You could call it so, yes. I had not thought to see the inside of that place again.'
'Indeed.' Colonel Smith turned to his wife. 'My dear, Colonel Hervey was made captive by Miguel's men last year, and had to cut his way out of the castle.'
Juana gave a little gasp. '
Emma was quick to oblige. 'I have placed you together at table, my dear Mrs Smith. Colonel Hervey will be able to tell you all. It is, in truth, a most thrilling story!'
The Somerviles were yet maintaining their Indian habit, observed Hervey as they went into dinner. On the table were grapes and jujubes, pawpaw, oranges peeled and dusted with ginger, fingerlengths of sugar cane, and slices of coconut and Bombay mango. It troubled some, he knew – Kezia was one of them – to begin a dinner with such sweet things, but in truth he was never much bothered with the precise progression of tastes. He recognized, certainly, the culinarian art when at its highest, but he did not fret for the want of it. Indeed, a dinner had to be of the most pronounced indifference – the meat rank, perhaps, the side dishes salty as sea, the bread very stale, and the sauces utterly congealed – before he would admit any remark. How might it be otherwise after years at Shrewsbury and then on campaign?
