receive his promotion), who would see that the stag was allowed a free run?
In one respect, however, he was pleased to see that there was yet no sign of a falling off: the Sixth kept a good table – a righteous dish of mutton, a stew of green vegetables in a rich cream sauce, potatoes roast in the mutton fat, with a very passable claret, and then an orange dessert simply done with baked sugar, delicious. Fairbrother found himself answering to questions on the boiling of sugarcane, which he did with easy authority.
‘May I ask,’ tried one of the new cornets, ‘what are the prospects for the plantations now that sugar is being extracted from beet?’ The Royal Navy’s late blockade of the Continent had meant that sugar-beet had supplanted cane in France and Prussia. ‘I had occasion last year to visit a factory in Silesia which made syrup from it.’
‘Thank you Mr Townshend,’ said Malet, with mock solemnity. ‘Your people in Norfolk will no doubt soon be essaying the same with the turnip?’
There was good-natured laughter, and Fairbrother was content to let his earlier misgivings subside. ‘My understanding is that it takes a very great deal of beet to make a very little sugar. Does not Adam Smith write that the real price of a thing is the toil and trouble of acquiring it? I suppose in the end it will therefore be but a simple matter of whether there is a greater return on a beet crop than another. And of that I confess I know nothing.’
Hervey too was content to enjoy the banter – and his friend’s erudition – but at the suitable remove of contemplating the Romney portrait of ‘Queen’ Caroline, now restored to its rightful place in the dining room. It was perhaps one of his few Whiggish inclinations, and he always smiled at the thought of it. Although the regiment had not for a dozen years borne the honorific ‘Princess Caroline’s Own’, he had never seen reason to put her portrait away privily. She had been dead these eight years, and if the King chose to dine with the regiment ever, then it was an easy enough affair to have the painting removed. And while the common view was that Caroline’s appearance was not exactly … striking, it was by no means displeasing – certainly not in Romney’s portrait of regal girlishness (he had more than a suspicion that Hayter’s great conversation piece, of her trial before the House of Lords, which made her fat and coarse, was painted thus for a purpose). In the Romney, her eyes were agreeably large, though her mouth was, he had to concede, simply too small to tempt. Henrietta’s mouth had been generous, while Kezia’s was perhaps the most perfect, her lips slightly thinner than Kat’s. An image of marble came to mind, for Kezia was the perfect subject for the sculptor’s art …
‘Colonel Hervey?’
He woke. ‘I’m sorry …?’
‘We were speaking of Trimalchio,’ said Malet. ‘Mr Agar says the Sybil of whose acquaintance he boasted was of Cumae, and Mr Jenkinson disputes it.’
As the senior officer present, Hervey assumed his position of adjudicator. It had always been the way in the Sixth: one minute the conversation might be of the most advantageous degree of curve in a sabre, and the next upon some point of antiquity or philosophy – or equally on the relative ratting prowess of officers’ terriers. Conversation was never dull for long, and often as not ended in the wagers book. ‘What brought the talk to Trimalchio? He was rather a low fellow, was he not?’
‘Captain Fairbrother said that Trimalchio could not have served better mutton than he had just enjoyed.’ Malet wore just the suspicion of a complicit smile; he knew the cornets well, and intended letting them have a little rein.
Hervey was tempted to be grave, but he too could not entirely keep a smile from his face. ‘Why say you otherwise than Mr Agar, Mr Jenkinson?’
Cornet Jenkinson, new joined from Oxford in the year just gone, had the air of a questioning, even puzzled curate. ‘I recall, sir, that Plato spoke of but one Sybil, and she at Delphi. And since the Delphian oracle was the best known to all, why should Trimalchio boast of another?’
Hervey inclined his head in a way that acknowledged the proposition. ‘Mr Agar?’
Cornet Agar, new joined in the same month as Jenkinson, and also from Christ Church, had an altogether acuter air, though not lacking in warmth. He and Jenkinson had lived cordially on the same staircase for several terms despite the difference of their families’ politics (the Jenkinsons were Tories of a most unbending sort – Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, had opposed Catholic relief to the last day of his administration; while Agar’s family stood prominently among the Whigs). ‘There is no doubt of it, sir. Petronius writes of the Sibyl of
Hervey raised an eyebrow, and turned to Cornet Jenkinson for his response.
‘I cannot dispute it further, sir. Agar’s memory serves him better than does mine.’
‘You are well that it did not come to the wagers book,’ concluded Malet, signalling that the conversation could resume its former dimensions.
Hervey turned a little in his chair to where Fairbrother sat with a fathoming look. ‘It’s as if I were a cornet again and Laming were here, sporting. I’m quite transported. You would have found his company most engaging. A considerable scholar … Something troubles you?’
Fairbrother shook his head. ‘Not
‘A very apt observation. You should put it to Jenkinson.’
Instead he put it to Agar, quietly, as they rose from the table.
Agar nodded confidentially. ‘Just so. It was the
Hervey heard the exchange, and he warmed to Agar for it.
In the ante-room, to which they returned to take more coffee, Jenkinson took his leave for picket duties, while Malet engaged Fairbrother in an examination of the wagers book (always a diverting pastime). Hervey chatted dutifully to the new paymaster, but after a few minutes that officer excused himself, for the imprest account was due its monthly reconciliation.
Agar saw, and detached himself from the little knot of other regimental staff hugging the fire. ‘Colonel Hervey, sir, I understand you are to observe the war in the East.’
‘That is so.’
‘Sir, I should like very much to accompany you.’
Hervey, slightly taken aback – not so much by the desire as the directness of the request – made an expression that suggested the notion was impractical.
But for a new cornet, Agar was singularly undaunted. ‘Sir, if I might add, I have travelled throughout Greece and a good part of Macedonia and those places close to the seat of the war, and I speak a little Persian.’
Hervey nodded appreciatively, though he feared Agar misjudged the nature of the business. ‘It is not a
Agar looked earnest. ‘I should be honoured to serve as your coverman, sir.’
Hervey suppressed an instinct to smile (for pluck was not to be derided); but a greenhorn cornet was no substitute for a winner of ‘Sabre and Carbine’. He shook his head. ‘The place is taken, though I take note of your zeal.’
Agar stood his ground, however. ‘Sir, there is no pressing need of me here – and I might add, no useful work – and since there is so little action to be seen other than scattering riotous assemblers, I must seek it out.’
Hervey frowned. ‘I wonder you did not choose an India regiment then,’ he said, suddenly inclined to be a little severe.
‘My mother’s people – cousins – served with the regiment, sir. That was my reason for wishing to join, rather than an India one.’
‘Indeed? Their name?’
Agar cleared his throat. ‘Lankester, sir.’
Hervey was too practised to betray emotion, but no mention of the name Lankester could be without effect. Both brothers had died at the head of the regiment; and, not least, Kezia had briefly borne the name – of which Agar must be aware. ‘Your mother’s people, you say?’
‘Cousins, sir.’
It guaranteed nothing, of course – only that his reason for joining was copper-bottomed – and yet here was a
