Company Of Spears

He read on. The polite expressions of pleasure and various causes for satisfaction continued, but in a cool and somewhat mechanical way, so that by the end he felt it might have been from Elizabeth herself on a matter of family business. But, he told himself, this was a first letter, their betrothal had been an unusual affair following so brief an acquaintance, and the time for expressions of endearment would follow. He did not mind the somewhat arch salutation (it was probably a relief to her, not having to initiate the intimacy of their correspondence) and after all, he had managed only ‘My dear Kezia’ and a few paragraphs hardly more amorous. It perhaps seemed strange in comparison with Kat’s last letter, received just as he was leaving for his ship, which was full of unselfconscious sentiments of affection. He shuddered at the import – what he thought was the import – and then put it from his mind as a mere demonic qualm.

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.