Madras Roads
Nisus dropped her anchor at two the following afternoon within sight of the great fort of St George, where Robert Clive had begun his service — a beginning that had taken him, as Hervey knew from his earliest lessons in the schoolroom, to Plassey and immortality. He climbed the shrouds better to spy their landfall, and soon he was able to make out the palaces extending for a mile or so along the shore — perfectly white, colonnaded, bespeaking a dignified wealth, a confident power. The massive walls of the fort — as big as those of any fortress he had yet seen — enclosed buildings of such grace and proportion as to suggest that Wren himself might have been here, the fine spire of St Mary’s church looking almost as if it were standing in the square mile of the City of London. How strange it seemed. He had expected an altogether more… native picture — the jungle encroaching, perhaps; domes and cupolas instead of the colonnades. Meanwhile, the quarterdeck having regained its spirits, Captain Peto was engaged in an exchange of signals with the fort, from which he emerged tolerably content to give instructions to make ready the boats.
The marines reassembled the sling tackle which had brought Jessye aboard, and lowered the canvas cradle into her stall. Private Johnson deftly fastened her in, and two dozen sweating men heaved on the halyards to lift her out of the square twelve feet that had been her stable these past months. She was swung out over the side with nothing more than a whicker, as she had been swung aboard, to Johnson’s evident relief and satisfaction. Hervey was already in the captain’s barge as the cradle descended slowly, watching apprehensively as Jessye began the instinctive treading motion when her feet felt the water. When she had reached her natural buoyancy and begun to swim properly, although still restrained by the sling tackle, Hervey leaned out to clip a leading-rope to her head collar. Although he did not suppose she would have difficulty following the boat, he knew she would feel more secure if he were leading her. As soon as it was fastened and the strain on the hoisting rope slackened, he leaned out as far as he could to unfasten the tackle and free her from the sling. Once she was safely astern, the oars struck for the shore, Hervey encouraging her the while.
At first all was well. Jessye kept up easily with the stroke of the oars. As they left the calm of the ship’s lee, however, she began to fall back, and the swell kept putting her out of sight. She was rapidly becoming distressed, and though there was but a half-mile to the shore, Hervey became anxious too, for at Corunna he had seen strong horses drown in their panic. ‘Captain, will you hold the rope?’ he asked. ‘I’d better go to her.’
Peto raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course, if you must,’ he replied, sighing as he handed the rope in turn to the midshipman in command of his barge.
Hervey threw off his coat and shoes, and slipped over the side. He had a moment’s vision of the sea snakes, shuddered at the thought, but then struck out for his mare. The water was warm, perhaps even warmer than the mill-race at Horningsham in summer, and he reached her in a couple of dozen strokes. She settled at once, with a whicker of contentment as soon as he touched her neck, and, the current taking them easily towards the shore, he even thought he would have a pleasant time of their swim. He was not as fast through the water, however, Jessye swimming in the only way she knew. A little abashed, he had to grab hold of her mane, taking care to keep his arm well stretched to stay clear of her busy legs. Once settled to the rhythm, however, they both seemed to enjoy it as much — more, for sure, than the times they had swum the half-frozen rivers of northern Spain. Then, sooner than expected, they were amid the breakers. The beach shelved gently and Jessye found her footing before her master did. But as soon as his feet touched bottom he sprang astride her.
The joy was instant — to be up on his little mare again after so many months — and she, kicking up through the surf, was likewise full of spirit once more. He was sure he could never describe it in any letter home — though try, in due turn, he must. He looped the rope about her neck and put her (or allowed her) into a canter along the water’s edge of the flat, sandy shore. She did not even buck. Months of box-rest, and here she was as good as gold! How genuine a horse could a man want? He could imagine no other as they slowed and turned after a quarter of a mile (for he wanted no strains), and he talked to her every yard of the way, encouraging, praising. She had stood patiently in that stall, in fair weather and foul, for half a year, and now she was responding to his leg and voice as if she were in the riding school at Wilton House. If only his old Austrian riding master could see them now: what pleasure would that eminent equestrian take in seeing the practical effects of his instruction!
Spain had been hotter — much hotter. But there the heat had come unquestionably from the sun. Here it was as if the air had been warmed in some vast oven, for it touched every part of him the same. There was no hiding from it, no shade. Seeking shade was anyway of no help, for the sun had no especial strength. This was the heat of the land, collected, stored, year after year. This was a heat that annealed rather than scorched, invigorated rather than weakened. He looked about as they trotted back to where the captain’s barge was being hauled ashore. Faces were turned towards them — open, warm-looking. It took a while for him to tumble — black faces. Or rather, brown; darker, certainly, than he had somehow imagined, and in stark contrast to the pearl-white buildings behind them. And the colours of their clothes — so bright, so unrestrained. Never had he seen their like. Heavens, but these women were arresting — shapely, graceful, smiling unselfconsciously. He wanted to jump from Jessye’s back to embrace them. How a head could be turned in this place!
Up on the embanked promenade bearers were porting richly caparisoned palanquins. Only an elephant would have been needed to complete his schoolroom image of the Indies. And, though separated by half the globe from all he loved, he was roused once again by his commission here — and already thinking of how Henrietta too might one day, soon, thrill to such a landing.
As he came up to the captain’s barge he saw the ambassage engaged with Peto. ‘And this, we must presume,’ said one of the officials, turning, ‘by his most obvious and characteristic mounted landing, is the captain of cavalry of whom you speak?’
The voice was a little precious, the language overflorid, but it was nonetheless warm. Hervey, soaked to the skin and barefoot, jumped down and held out his hand. ‘This is Captain Hervey, Mr Lucie,’ said Peto; ‘Hervey, Mr Philip Lucie, fourth in council at the presidency here.’
Lucie was a little older than Hervey, about the same height, though with a sparer frame, and he wore his clothes with a studied elegance. ‘You are half-expected, sir,’ he said with some bemusement.
Hervey was even more bemused, for Madras formed no part of the itinerary given him by Colonel Grant. ‘Indeed, sir? How so?’
Lucie smiled. ‘My sister has received a letter from Paris informing us that you were to come to India.’
What in heaven’s name, he wondered, might this man’s sister have to do with Colonel Grant? ‘I am honoured to be the subject of such correspondence — though, I confess, somewhat puzzled.’
Peto made a restive noise which hastened Lucie to full revelation.
‘My sister has some affinity with the lady to whom you are engaged to be married. Which lady wrote to her here from Paris, though she did not imagine you would see Madras.’
Hervey looked astonished. ‘No, we… that is…’
‘I have explained our circumstances, Hervey,’ huffed Peto. ‘May we proceed to business, Mr Lucie? I have no time to waste.’
‘Of course, Captain,’ he smiled. ‘I have already alerted the naval commissioner to your presence. But since you expect to be engaged here these several days, perhaps I might extend to you and Captain Hervey the hospitality of my quarters at the fort? I believe we may offer you a table worthy of the Company — or, I should properly say, of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.’
Peto, though tempted to make some remark touching on the propriety of that company, contented himself with a brisk acceptance for the following day; ‘For there is much to attend to aboard my ship while there is still light. But Hervey, here, is entirely free to avail himself of the Company’s hospitality at once.’
It took no time at all for Philip Lucie to arrange for Captain Peto to see the naval commissioner, and that officer, though about to proceed on home leave, threw himself with the greatest energy into the expedition of the captain’s several requests. The injured crewmen of the Nisus were brought ashore soon afterwards to the naval hospital — a fine-looking two-storey infirmary with an airy balcony running the length of the upper floor, and with separate quarters to isolate contagion. It stood half a mile or so outside the fort, surrounded by palm trees, and when Peto called on his return from the shipwright’s office he was quickly reassured in leaving his men in the care of its native staff, though their faces were more than ever alien to him after so many months at sea. His final business was with the storekeeper, and this was conducted with the same brisk efficiency as at the shipwright’s, so that Peto was afterwards able to express himself much privileged to meet with officials capable of such address. Even so, he declined once more Lucie’s invitation to dine at Fort George that evening: ‘My compliments to the governor, sir, but I must first superintend the repairs to my ship. Captain Hervey will, no doubt, have much to speak of with your sister.’
Madras was one of the most agreeable places Hervey had ever seen. Of that he was sure, even on so short an acquaintance. Most of the houses and public buildings which lay along the shoreline were extensive and elegant, limed with chunam which took a polish like marble, putting him in mind of pictures of Italian palazzi. Most had colonnades to the upper storeys, supported by arched, rustic bases, and it was not difficult to imagine himself somewhere along a Mediterranean rather than an Indian coast — though perhaps the minarets here and there might place him further towards Constantinople than to Naples. It was the pagodas which settled his true location, however, and it was as well that he should see them now, for a short distance away Fort George, with its lines and bastions, its Government House and gardens, and St Mary’s church, suggested that despite all contrary indications Madras was a place as British as Leadenhall Street — the distant headquarters of this remarkable company.
Madras, the captain’s clerk had told him, was a place that had turned its back on India, looking out to the east rather than to the country itself, unlike Bombay and Calcutta. Here, said the clerk, the English conducted themselves as if in London. The displays of fine equipage along the Mount Road of an evening, where to be seen at the cenotaph in memory of Lord Cornwallis was to attain the acme of society, rivalled anything that might be observed in Hyde Park. And afterwards, if there was no meeting at the racecourse nearby, whose graceful stand would have been the envy of Newmarket or Ascot, the occupants of these elegant carriages would return home, dress in great finery and dine to the accompaniment of the most superior wines. Then, perhaps, having dressed once more, they might repair to a ball, to dance until the early hours before at last retiring. And when husbands had, next day, gone to their offices, blades would visit from house to house retailing news, or to ask commissions to town for the ladies, to bring a bauble that had been newly set, or one of which the lady had hinted before — one she would willingly purchase for herself but that her husband did not like her to spend so much — and which she might thus obtain from some young man, a quarter of whose monthly salary would probably be sacrificed to his gallantry.
The captain’s clerk might warn that Madras was become depraved, but to Hervey that morning it was simply alive. ‘Then you must stay with us at Fort George for as long as you are able!’ said Philip Lucie. ‘Let us show you how civilized a country this may be.’
Nothing could have been more welcome to him, for the entreaty meant the indulging of Jessye in the presidency stables. Above all, it meant he might have some intimation of Henrietta’s response to his leaving Paris in such haste. The mere fact of her writing to a friend suggested she was not unsympathetic; but he was more than ever fearful that he had likely trespassed a journey too far.
That evening, as the oven heat of the day gave way to a balminess that seemed from the pages of an old Indiaman’s recollections, Hervey and the fourth in council dined together in the place of England’s first footing on the subcontinent. In the short time at his disposal, Philip Lucie had given considerable thought to their fare, at first supposing it apt to display the culinary glories of Madras, a taste to which he was wholly devoted. But he had later thought better of it, for he knew that the privations of a long sea voyage did not always render the digestion welcoming of assault by spices (he had not been in the east for so long as to forget his own first, tumultuous encounter with Madrasi spices). So, instead, he conceded to digestive prudence: after a mild native pepper soup they would proceed to the finest beefsteaks in India.
They were to be made four at dinner, he explained. His sister would soon arrive, having spent the day driving in the peace and quiet of the hills west of the city, and they would be joined by another, whose company he was sure Hervey must admire. ‘But first allow me a quarter-hour’s leave. I have to sign articles of authority. Here,’ he said, handing him a sheet of paper, ‘this will entertain you — the bill of lading for our gallant general who left for England with his staff yesterday.’ And with that Lucie courteously abandoned him to the sights and sounds, and most conspicuously the smells, of his new surroundings.
Hervey, wearing the lightest clothes that Lucie was able to find him, stood on the terrace of this gentlemanly residence, closed his eyes and listened to the rising chorus of cicadas from the gardens all about. What the sources were of the procession of smells he could scarcely imagine, for, beyond the occasional wisp of smoke, he had not encountered them before. None was rank, and most were agreeable. They were, he expected, restrained compared with those he might find in country India, but they were wholly alien nevertheless.
To his side came, without a sound, a khitmagar bearing a silver tray. Hervey started on seeing him, then felt foolish, and then appeared as such by asking for whiskey and seltzer in Urdu. It was only after several exchanges that he realized Urdu was as strange a tongue as French would have been — except that later he remembered the French held sway in the Carnatic for many years. When the khitmagar returned he simply took the glass and bowed in the universal sign of gratitude, at which the little Tamil looked even more bemused.
Hervey took refuge in the paper Lucie had given him. It was, as he promised, diverting; a list to make any commissary envious.
Articles Put On Board ‘The Fortitude’, Packet, Captain Bowden, For His Voyage To England, For The Use Of Major-General Stuart, &c, &c.
Licquors Dozens
Claret 60
Madeira 60
Arrack, half a leaguer Brandy 18
Hock 12
Porter 24
Bullocks 12
Hams 15
Sheep 60
Tongues Casks 5
Fowls and capons 30 Doz
Cheeses 6
Ducks 12 Doz
Fine rice Bags 12
Turkies 2 Doz
Fine bisquit Bags 30
Geese 3 Doz
Flour Casks 3
Hogs and pigs 30
Tea chest 1
Sows and young 2
Sugar-candy Tubs 10
Milch goats 6
Butter Firkins 5
Candles Mds 8
salt-fish, curry-stuff, pease, spices, lime juice, onions, &c, &c, cabin furniture, table linen and towels, glassware, China &c, &c. Standing and swinging cots with bedding and curtains complete. A couch. Also a great number of small articles of provision, care having been taken that nothing material should be omitted.
(Signed) W. M. SYDENHAM,
Town Major.
FORT ST. GEORGE
3rd February 1816.
‘You are, I imagine, in some degree impressed by the care with which we treat a general officer?’ said Lucie as he returned.
‘I am all astonishment,’ replied Hervey truthfully.
‘Then let that invoice speak by itself of the wealth and address of the Honourable East India Company, sir. Nothing is left wanting for its servants. Were you a lieutenant-colonel on the duke’s staff you would not receive as much as a captain on the Madras establishment! You will find it tempting to stay when your essay for His Grace is finished.’
How he wished he could tell him that he himself expected to be installed at Fort William before too long. Instead he contented himself with the first thing he could think of: ‘Are you very much concerned with bills of lading and the like?’
‘We are a trading company, Hervey.’
‘Oh, indeed, I—’
‘However, my principal occupation as fourth in council is the affairs of the country powers,’ he added with an indulgent smile. ‘Very much more interesting than bills of lading!’
The khansamah entered and announced Lucie’s other guest, an apparently youngish man but with a decided look of the dissolute. Lucie reversed the strict formulary by introducing him to Hervey. ‘May I present Mr Eyre Somervile, who is Deputy commissioner of Kistna and Collector-Magistrate of Guntoor district in the Northern Circars.’
Hervey bowed. A most imposing appellation, he thought, and for one whom Lucie now intimated was but a little younger than Lucie himself. The collector of land revenues bore the customary marks of the Company’s service — at least, as imagined by those whose knowledge was limited to salacious gossip. His face seemed puffed up, though the remnants of fine features indicated that once it might have been described as distinguished. His thinning hair was bleached by the fierce sun, of which he evidently had little regard (for his puffy skin was the colour of some of the native men Hervey had seen on the beach), and though his raw silk shirt was generously proportioned, it did not conceal the swelling that was his stomach. But he had kind eyes.
Then came the fourth for dinner. ‘My dear,’ said Lucie, positively beaming, ‘you know Mr Somervile. May I present Captain Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons.’ A tall, slender woman, close to Hervey’s age, serene in a shot-silk dress cut in the late Empire fashion, made a low curtsy in response to their bows. Her skin had not the pallor of the other European ladies he had seen on his way to the fort, for she — like Somervile — evidently took no especial shelter from the sun. But how well did it complement her raven hair! ‘Captain Hervey, my sister, Emma.’
It was not difficult for Hervey to be captivated. Emma Lucie had the same engaging smile as her brother, an unthreatening self-possession, and — revealed quickly but charmingly — a keen mind. They chatted freely for some minutes (though with no mention of Henrietta, for Hervey was nervous of hearing anything that would trouble him any greater at this time), and then she turned and greeted the collector more intimately. Somervile dabbed at his neck with a small piece of towel as he took a glass of claret from the khitmagar, drank it at once and then took another. Emma Lucie addressed him in French so eloquent that Hervey might have thought himself a beginner.
‘He is a most exceptional fellow, I assure you,’ said Lucie quietly, taking Hervey to one side; ‘he is the cleverest man I have ever met. Not only does he seem to speak every language in southern India, he knows everything of their etymologies. And he has such a remarkable facility with the native people too: he knows everything of their religions and customs, and they hold him in the very greatest esteem and affection. He will be able to tell you everything there is to know about the country.’
‘I should like that very much,’ he replied, glancing across at Somervile. ‘Your sister — she has been here some time?’
‘Almost five years! She refused flatly to be presented, saying she would have no more of London. That is where she knew your affianced.’
Hervey concluded that, with so distant a connection, the acquaintance might not have been as intimate as he supposed.
‘She and Somervile would appear to be conducting the longest courtship the presidency has ever seen,’ added Lucie with a smile. ‘But come, it is time to supplement all that ship’s biscuit you have been subsisting on with some red meat!’
When they were seated, after grace (from which Somervile’s ‘amen’ was conspicuously absent), and as hock chill enough to bring a mist to the side of the glasses was poured, the collector looked directly at Hervey and frowned. ‘And so are you come, sir, to seek your fortune in the east, or to inform us of some delinquency the duke considers us guilty of?’
He had scarcely taken two spoons of soup before having to protest that he had no other designs but acquiring skill with the lance.
‘I am in any case much relieved to learn that you are an emissary of the Duke of Wellington, for he can do little harm,’ replied Somervile, raising an eyebrow.
Hervey could not, from either words or intonation, gauge Somervile’s precise meaning. ‘In what sense might the duke do any harm, sir?’ he enquired.
‘I mean that as a military man there is little to fear from the duke. If he were to return and put all of the Carnatic to the sword he would do little lasting harm. If, however, he took cloth and returned with a bible he would have most of India in revolt.’
Hervey looked astonished at the proposition — both its parts.
‘Generally speaking, Captain Hervey, the Hindoo does not fear death half so much as he fears baptism,’ explained the collector. ‘I am more greatly exercised by the emissaries of Mr Wilberforce who wish to convert the heathen to their especially repugnant form of Christianity!’
Emma Lucie sighed and raised her eyebrows with studied amusement. ‘Mr Somervile includes me in his strictures, Captain Hervey, for I take a Sunday-school class and there are native pupils.’
‘But Miss Lucie’s is a most accommodating form of religion, Captain Hervey,’ replied Somervile without looking at her. ‘It stirs up little ardour. You have read, I hope, of Warren Hastings?’
This was becoming remarkably like dinner at Cork, thought Hervey, when that assembly of patriots had tested his understanding of history. ‘Yes, I have read of his trial,’ he replied cautiously.
‘Trial? Impeached before a lunatic House of Lords! Seven whole years they vilified his comprehension of this country!’
‘The collector feels a keen affinity for Warren Hastings, Hervey. They were each at Westminster, a very superior school, you understand!’ said Lucie gravely.
The collector smiled. ‘I admit it.’
‘He will admit, too, of equal scholarship at Winchester and Eton,’ added Lucie with a look of mock despair; ‘but the likes of Shrewsbury — where I received my education — he holds in scant regard.’
Hervey looked back at him. ‘I was at Shrewsbury too, sir.’
‘Indeed?’ said Lucie, agreeably surprised.
‘I left just as the war was taken to the Peninsula.’
‘My time was past somewhat before then. Trafalgar was done in my second year at Cambridge.’
‘And did you know a boy called Henry Locke?’ Lucie recalled at once. ‘Adonis?’
‘Well, yes,’ sighed Hervey, thinking how he might explain the change in his appearance.
‘He was a year or so below me,’ said Lucie, the recollection of him evidently pleasant; ‘but what an athlete! He could throw a ball clear across the river.’
‘Well, sir, he is with me aboard the Nisus. He is commanding officer of her marines.’
Lucie nodded, agreeably again. ‘Then I should very much like to see him.’
Somervile evidently thought it time to make some amends for the impression given of him. ‘Ultimately, Lucie, the only means of judging a school is by its alumni. Captain Hervey, here, is a distinguished enough soldier to attract the attention of a field marshal, so I should suppose him to be a man of sensibility. I have a high regard for men under discipline. I conclude from this additional evidence, therefore, that Shrewsbury school is a diamond of the first water.’
‘Just so,’ agreed Lucie, wishing to move on. ‘You were saying of Warren Hastings?’
‘I was saying that his comprehension will be vindicated, if indeed it has not already been so. To succeed in any measure in India you must treat with the native from a position of close association. Have you heard of Sir Charles Wilkins, Captain Hervey?’
Hervey said he had not.
But Emma Lucie had: ‘The Sanskrit scholar, do you mean, Mr Somervile?’
‘Yes indeed, madam,’ he replied with no especial notice of the singularity of her knowing — nor indeed, of the reason. ‘He was the first Englishman to gain a proper understanding of Sanskrit. He translated the Bhagavhad-gita. Hastings wrote a foreword and in it he said that every instance which brings the real character of the Hindoo home to observation will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own. These are wise sentiments: there are too many which contemptuously deny them.’
‘One may be counted too many, Somervile,’ said Lucie promptly, ‘but do you really suppose there are enough to imperil the Company’s situation?’
‘Let me put the question to you, sir,’ he replied. ‘How many in the service of the Company hereabouts make any concession to native custom — beyond smoking a hookah or taking to bed dusky, lower-caste women?’
Lucie blanched and protested.
‘Do not trouble on my account, gentlemen,’ urged Emma; ‘you forget I have been in these parts quite long enough to know the way of things.’
Somervile pressed on, not the least abashed. ‘You, Lucie, are an honourable exception here in Madras, but how many of your fellows have troubled to learn any more of the language of the natives with whom they speak, other than to facilitate satisfaction for whatever are their appetites at that moment?’
Emma Lucie intervened to enquire of Hervey’s culpability in this respect.
‘I have been learning Urdu these past six months, but have not yet had any chance to practise with a native speaker,’ he explained.
‘I am gratified to hear of it, Captain Hervey,’ said Somervile. ‘Urdu is as serviceable a choice to begin with as any.’
‘But you object to the preaching of the gospel, even in that tongue?’
‘I do.’
‘We want no repeat of the Vellore mutiny,’ added Lucie, signalling to his khansamah to have the soup dishes cleared.
‘Mutiny?’ Hervey’s voice carried the chill which the word had brought.
‘Not ten years ago,’ said Lucie, shaking his head as if the memory were personal and vivid. ‘Vellore is about a hundred miles distant, to the west of here, and less than half that distance from the border with Mysore. You must understand that at that time Madras and Mysore were in the midst of a most hostile dispute. The sepoys at Vellore rose during the night and killed very many of the European garrison. They would have prevailed, and thrown in their lot with those devils in Mysore had it not been for the address shown by Colonel Gillespie.’
Hervey was at once roused by the image of this gallant officer. Might he know more?
‘Indeed you might, Hervey; and right pleased you should be of it, for Gillespie was a cavalryman — though I cannot recall which regiment exactly—’
‘You should, Lucie, for it was the first King’s regiment of cavalry in the Company’s service,’ said the collector archly, surprised that a Madras writer should not know his history more perfectly. ‘The Nineteenth, Captain Hervey — light dragoons.’
‘Ah,’ said Hervey, mindful of the Nineteenth’s reputation, ‘the victors of Assaye — the battle which the Duke of Wellington counts higher than Waterloo in his estimation.’
‘Just so,’ replied the collector approvingly.
‘Well,’ coughed Lucie, taking up where he had faltered, ‘Colonel Gillespie’s regiment were about three leagues away at Arcot. Word was got to him and he set off at once with a portion of dragoons and a couple of galloper guns. With a determined assault he was able to overcome in excess of fifteen hundred mutineers. The bravest man in India, he was called.’
‘And he died but a year ago,’ said the collector, ‘a major general — sword in hand fighting the Nepalis. A fine soldier and an equally fine gentleman. But this is to stray from the material point, Lucie: we were discussing the cause of the mutiny.’
‘Indeed we were. Well, Hervey, the cause, lying in a nutshell, the ostensible cause, was the activities of missionaries.’
‘Did you know the Abbé Dubois, sir?’ asked Hervey, the abbé’s book having lain open in his cabin for much of his voyage. ‘He was a missioner was he not? I have been reading his study of the Hindoos and their customs. It seems to me an admirable work.’
‘I knew him imperfectly: I met him but a half-dozen times — to converse with him on his perceptions of the country. I do not include him in my general censure. In any case, the French here had a rather different intention.’
‘So you will be acquainted with his book?’
‘Indeed I am. I first read it at Cambridge. Lucie, you must surely have a copy?’ he said, in a manner implying a request.
‘Why, yes — but in translation only, if such you do not disdain!’ he replied, already on his feet at the collector’s challenge, searching the shelves which ran the whole length of one wall. ‘I saw it only a day or so ago… Yes, here!’ He pulled out a handsome leather-bound volume and presented it to the collector.
‘Then I shall now quote to you from it,’ he said, leafing through as if he knew it well. ‘This is a most telling passage: “I venture to predict that Britain will attempt in vain to effect any very considerable changes in the social condition of the people of India, whose character, principles, customs, and ineradicable conservatism will always present insurmountable obstacles.” How say you to that?’
‘Just so,’ agreed Lucie.
‘A counsel of some despair, however,’ sighed Emma Lucie, ‘for India had the Word of Our Lord before our own lands. The apostle Thomas brought the gospel to these shores.’
‘Madam,’ began the collector, leaning forward with a look of keen anticipation, ‘I should like very much to speak with you at greater length on these matters, but a question of Captain Hervey has just this minute occurred to me, and which I should wish to put instead at this time.’
She nodded obligingly, while Hervey braced himself for what he sensed was a question that would test his guard.
‘Urdu, Captain Hervey, was the language of the Mughal court and is the language of those parts where the heirs of Babur still rule. Yet these parts are largely to the west and north, and you are — you say — making for Calcutta?’
‘That is correct,’ replied Hervey without difficulty; ‘propriety demands that I first present myself to the commander-in-chief at Fort William. But I understand that the finest exponents of the lance are to be found, however, in Haidarabad, where I believe my Urdu would be most apt.’
‘Haidarabad?’ said Lucie, in a tone implying that this was somehow to be deprecated.
Hervey was put on alert. ‘It was the duke’s remembrance thus, sir. It is of no necessity that I go to Haidarabad if there be some difficulty, and if there are other apt exponents of the weapon. No doubt the commander-in-chief will direct me appropriately.’
Lucie clearly wished the condition of Haidarabad had not been broached, and his discomfort was now compounded by Somervile’s blithe indifference to his sensibilities in this respect. ‘There is some uncertainty in our relations with the nizam at present, is there not, Lucie?’ he called from the other end of the table.
There was nothing for it but to brazen things out, as if it were of no great moment. ‘There is indeed,’ replied the fourth in council, ‘and want of intelligence is our greatest affliction. I fancy that the commander-in-chief would welcome your seconding there, if such could be arranged — which I very much doubt. Haidarabad is a closed book to the Company.’
‘Why do you doubt it?’ asked Hervey, with as little air of concern as he could manage.
‘Because,’ smiled Lucie, ‘the nizam appears to be in one of his periodic bouts of inscrutability.’
‘And not helped by the Company’s resident, and the Pindarees,’ added the collector.
Lucie shot an urgent look at him. ‘Somervile has also the rather tedious difficulty of having as a neighbour a small state which seems to be permanently at odds with Haidarabad. He is especially sensitive thereby, for when elephants fight — so to speak — they trample on a good deal of their neighbours’ crops. You understand what is the function of a Company resident, I take it?’
Hervey took the opportunity to learn more. ‘Perhaps if you would remind—’
‘By all means, sir. The Company’s policy for some years — initiated, indeed, by the brother of your Duke of Wellington when he was in Calcutta — has been to conclude treaties with the country powers whereby their security is guaranteed by the Company in exchange for their surrendering the right to engage in war on their own account. These subsidiary alliances, as they are known, are bolstered by a force raised and officered by the Company but paid for by the country power itself. And a resident is appointed to the court as an ambassador of the Company.’
Hervey was intrigued by the earlier intimation of difficulty with the Haidarabad resident — and the Pindarees (whoever they might be). He judged it inexpedient to pursue the question, however, for there was more than a suggestion that the nizam might be not nearly so well disposed towards the Duke of Wellington as imagined. He would try to change rein for the time being at least. ‘And this state which is at odds with its neighbour?’ he asked, again as innocently as he might.
‘Chintal,’ replied the collector, helping himself to whiskey and seltzer from the decanter making its slow progress around the table. And the Rajah of Chintal was largely to be pitied, he continued, for he was a Hindoo and wholly in awe of the nizam, in whose territory the princely state of Chintal would have occupied no more than a fraction of a corner. ‘If all the nizam’s subjects spat at once in the same direction,’ he sighed (to Lucie’s evident distaste), ‘Chintal would be drowned out of sight.’ ‘Just so, Somervile. I myself would have described Chintal as a nine-gun state, however. Less colourful than your description, but more telling.’
Hervey seemed not to understand the claim.
‘I mean that the rajah receives a nine-gun salute from the Company — the minimum.’
‘The nizam gets twenty-one,’ added the collector; ‘as do only four others.’
‘Others?’ enquired Hervey.
The collector looked at Lucie, who took up the challenge: the country powers were his business, after all. ‘Mysore, Gwalior, Kashmir… and Baroda, though heaven knows why, for it is a trifling place.’
Hervey wondered how he might enquire of Chintal’s condition, but could think of no way that might not arouse suspicion.
Lucie was growing more agitated by the minute, however. The collector had often enough made known his view that circumspection was no asset in India, so he now sought emphatically to deflect the conversation away from matters that might lead to graver indiscretion. ‘Come,’ he said firmly, ‘it is time for some air. Shall we go and see your horse, Hervey? And perhaps Somervile will show us his too, for they carried off all the trophies at the racecourse last evening!’
The stables at Fort George were solid, whitewashed affairs which would have been the envy of London. The Governor’s Bodyguard, a hundred native troopers under a British officer, were as pampered as His Majesty’s Life Guards — though hardened by not infrequent forays into the field. The numerous little fires about the yards, lit in the evenings to drive away the flying insects which otherwise plagued the occupants, were dying down, and although it was now much cooler, the punkahs were still swinging. The syces had gone to their own charpoys some hours ago, leaving the lines to the chowkidars, each of whom made low namaste as the visitors passed.
Jessye was lying at full stretch, perhaps pleased at last there was no motion beneath her bed. She raised her head as the four approached, her ears pricked with her habitual alertness, and she drew up her forelegs in preparation to rise should the disturbance threaten her. But on seeing Hervey in the lantern light she relaxed visibly, her ears flattening to the sides in anticipation of some word from him, and she whickered — scarcely more than a grunt, but enough to alert the other horses in the lines, each of whom echoed the sound of pleasant expectation. Hervey bade her stay down, pulling her ears a little and giving her candied fruit which he had stuffed into his pockets as they left the dining room.
The collector made approving noises: he could see her obvious handiness, he said.
Lucie was less restrained: ‘She is not a looker, but I can vouch that she swims well!’
Her master pulled a face, but the collector beckoned him towards the further stalls, where his own mares stood.
‘Arabs!’ exclaimed Hervey. ‘I have never seen them this close before.’ And both mares flattened their ears and flared their nostrils, intending that he should get no closer.
The collector smiled. ‘I prefer to call them Kehilans — the Arabic for thoroughbred.’
‘More literally, “of noble descent”, I think,’ said Emma Lucie.
‘Just so, madam,’ replied the collector, surprised. ‘I defer to your uncommon facility with languages!’
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘merely a good memory. I was once shown the Kehilan in Newmarket. I wanted to see what was your facility.’
‘Oh,’ he replied absently, ‘just the here and now.’
Lucie would not hear of this modesty. ‘Somervile has studied at the university in Fès, Hervey. The languages of the Orient are his passion.’
‘And horses, evidently,’ replied Hervey, who had coaxed one of the mares forward to take candy from his hand.
‘Indeed yes,’ replied the collector; ‘a measure of a civilization may be largely had from its horses. You will never comprehend, say, a Bedouin unless you acquaint yourself with that which he holds above even his most favoured wife.’
‘And rather more prosaically,’ said Lucie, ‘Somervile takes from us a prodigious number of rupees each time he brings his horses here to race!’
The collector smiled, with satisfaction. ‘Tomorrow they return with me to Guntoor. Why don’t you do the same?’ he said to Hervey. ‘You would see more of India than hereabouts. In Madras you may as well be in Brighton. There is a brig leaving tomorrow. And you, too, Miss Lucie. You were saying only yesterday that you had calls in Rajahmundry which were overdue. It is a short distance only, and a good time of the year to be travelling.’
With the knowledge that Nisus would remain in the roads for at least five more days, it was, said Hervey, a capital invitation. ‘Might you extend it to my friend Mr Locke?’
Somervile seemed content.
The invitation held its appeal for Emma Lucie too. ‘There is also a ship leaving for England tomorrow, Captain Hervey. It will take letters of ours; do you wish it to take any of yours?’
Indeed he did. And he would write an additional one to Henrietta to tell her of this fortuitous meeting. ‘In her letter to you, madam, was there anything that I might know?’ he added cautiously.
Emma Lucie considered a while. ‘Not really, sir. Henrietta merely says that you are to come to India on affairs of the Duke of Wellington. She asks that we receive you, if it is expedient — for she knows you are bound for Calcutta rather than here. She says that she hopes herself to make the journey here soon.’
‘Oh?’ said Hervey, quickened — though he had said in his letter that he thought it better he should first return.
‘That is to say, perhaps,’ added Emma promptly, ‘after you are married? For her letter bore the marks of being written in some haste, and her meaning was not altogether clear in that respect. I shall, of course, write to her and say she is welcome here at any time — subject, of course, to your wishes.’
Hervey seemed confused. ‘I don’t know what is best. I am under orders, and cannot therefore vouch for my movements at this time. She may come here and we never see each other!’
‘Then I think it best if that is said. Henrietta will make up her own mind — as she always has.’
Hervey agreed somewhat ruefully. ‘How long shall this ship take to reach England?’
Emma Lucie turned to her brother, who was still engrossed in contemplation of Somervile’s champion Kehilans. ‘How long shall our letters take home, Philip?’
‘It is one of our fast pinnaces with despatches for Leadenhall Street: two months.’
‘Only two months? Nisus took the best part of—’
‘The pinnace goes to Egypt,’ explained Lucie, ‘and then the despatches are taken overland and by the Mediterranean: two months, at most, this time of year. That is the way your affianced’s express came.’