The Passage to India

by Allan Mallinson

  With the greatest show of courtesy, principally for the benefit of those who did not wear the King’s coat, for otherwise there might seem to be no honour in the profession of arms, General Dalbiac invited the colonel to speak of events.

  Brereton seemed suddenly to brighten. Hervey wondered what was the cause – what new consideration there might be. He was certainly keen to hear at last what Brereton considered his better judgement to have been, for the statements he had heard during those hours at Bristol, and read subsequently, were not to his mind those of an officer of experience in possession of his full faculties.

  Brereton’s testimony was, however, an unhappy business. He spoke from the extensive submission to which General Dalbiac had referred – and none too succinctly, which never, in Hervey’s experience, went well with a tribunal, and in a tone of appeal rather than with the semi-contemptuous assurance that might have impressed the listener. Indeed, during the course of his long statement and the questions that followed, Hervey learned nothing new. Two hours they sat, before General Dalbiac, with an affirming nod from Sir Peregrine, spoke the welcome words: ‘Gentlemen, we shall adjourn for one and one half of one hour for luncheon.’

  Hervey himself had no great appetite after his breakfast at the post-house in Bath, where he’d rested a while having left Hounslow late the night before after a field day on the heath, and so instead of joining the procession of officers making for the inquiry’s dining room, he thought to leave the hall and take a little air.

  However, Sir Peregrine’s somewhat fey voice carried all too clearly above the hubbub, staying him mid-stride. ‘Colonel Hervey!’

  He turned. ‘General.’

  ‘Have not had the pleasure. D’you do.’

  Hervey bowed. Kat was nowhere to be seen (much relief).

  ‘Will you dine with us this evening, Colonel? You and Lady Katherine are acquainted, I understand. It would be a kindness to her. She knows no others here.’

  What choice did he have, unless he could claim some prior engagement, which in truth he could not, for he’d no very clear notion when he might give his evidence and have his congé. Dining would scarcely be agreeable – perhaps not even to Kat – but would it even be bearable? Once he had taken this man’s wife for a mistress – no, not mistress; that demeaned them both, he and Kat; they had sought mutual consolation. Except, of course, that neither had the right to, and would answer therefore ‘at the dreadful day of judgement, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed’. And trouble him that did – Memento Mori; and one day, soon, he must make his peace, however that was done. For the moment, though, there was a more pressing day of judgement: did Sir Peregrine know more of their ‘acquaintance’ than he suggested? He and Kat had had no communication in over a year. He’d sought her once during that time – in truth, twice – but fortunately without success …

  ‘Delighted, General. I thank you.’

  ‘Capital! Clifton, then, at eight.’

  The afternoon he found no more enlightening than the morning. Hervey gave his account of events as unadorned by comment as he thought possible. He was questioned on a few points of detail by members of the board, none of which points seemed to him materially significant; but not – to his considerable satisfaction – by Colonel Brereton, who remained impassive throughout. What penalty Brereton would suffer if the board considered his judgement to be defective to the point of negligence was not his concern. The man was done for, no matter what. The half-pay was the only future Brereton could reasonably expect (though he reminded himself that juries were strange things).

  He began to gather himself for dismissal as General Dalbiac thanked him for his ‘precision and dispassion’. Then to his dismay, he was asked to return the following morning.

  ‘The board would deem it a favour, Colonel Hervey, if you were to hear Mayor Pinney’s testimony and hold yourself ready to answer any matters arising which in the opinion of the board have not already been addressed.’

  It was, he would concede, eminently reasonable, though he could hardly suppose it necessary. The facts were the facts. He wanted to return to Hounslow with all haste, for the regiment had buried three of its own this past week, and there were several more for whom the surgeon had little hope (Collins himself, though much better, was still weak). He wanted, also, to return via Heytesbury, and every hour he was delayed was an hour less that he could spend with Georgiana. It even occurred to him that he might not be dismissed for as long as the inquiry sat if General Dalbiac (perhaps at Sir Peregrine’s bidding?) was minded to question his own handling of events.

  ‘Of course, sir. But I would ask, respectfully, to be discharged at the earliest opportunity. We are much oppressed by sickness at Hounslow.’

  Dalbiac nodded. ‘Of course.’

  At eight o’clock by the cathedral bell, which carried sharp in the still, cold air, Hervey presented himself at Sir Peregrine’s lodgings in Clifton. That the bell sounded the hour was more than just expedient; it fortified him. It might so easily have been consumed by fire, like the bishop’s palace, had it not been for a few stalwart parishioners and then his own determination to prevent a second night’s incendiarism. Whatever the tribunal had in mind, he was assured that without his own address they would not have been deliberating on the matter in the Merchant Venturers’ Hall, for that too would have been a pile of ash-cloaked rubble.

  The lodgings were, he thought, rather grander than necessary for a stay of a few days, even for a lieutenant-general. Perhaps Sir Peregrine and his lady intended staying longer? Perhaps the member for St Felix intended making a visit to parliament, though he couldn’t suppose his constituents gave him any cause (he chided himself at this sudden Radicalism)? Or perhaps Kat merely wished a home from home, the house in Holland Park being extensive, and likewise, he supposed, their lodgings in Dublin.

  There was a corporal of Foot at the door, and clearly not for ceremony. Hervey acknowledged his salute and made his way into the hall, giving his cloak to a footman and ascending the stairs. At the top, another footman announced him, and Sir Peregrine, talking with a man in clericals at the door of his substantial anteroom, turned to greet him.

  ‘Colonel Hervey, I am glad you are come. Bishop, may I present Colonel Hervey, whose action brought the disorders to a halt.’

  A sad-eyed man of about his father’s age returned Hervey’s bow.

  Hervey supposed there to be but one bishop who might receive Sir Peregrine’s hospitality this evening, and, glad at least to have the favourable opinion of the president of the inquiry, felt he could express a measure of humility. ‘Dr Gray, sir; I am only sorry that we were unable to save your library.’

  It was not calculated to make the bishop’s sad eyes brighter, but how might he not mention the most infamous, wanton destruction of the whole wretched affair?

  ‘Because I had voted with my fellow bishops against Reform,’ Dr Gray replied unhappily. ‘Colonel Hervey, I say to you frankly that the loss of my library is but nothing to the loss of that confidence which I believed I had of the people in my cure.’ (He did not mention in addition the loss, almost entire, of his more worldly goods.) ‘I think they must have been incited by malign voices.’

  Sir Peregrine had excused himself to attend on his other guests, and Hervey found himself in consolatory role. Bishop Gray, his father had frequently said, was a most amiable gentleman and scholarly divine. Hervey knew he had ignored all entreaties to leave the city that Sunday, instead insisting on the offices being said in the cathedral, and preaching a sermon of – by common consent – passing excellence.

  ‘My lord, may I tell you that my sar’nt-major, who is from those parts, says that in the coalfields of the Tyne your name is spoken of with the greatest affection and regard.’

  The words brought a faint smile. Before his translation to Bristol, Dr Gray had had the living of Bishopwearmouth, and a stall in the cathedral at Durham, and some years earlier had invited Sir Humphry Davy to come to the coalfields t
o see what might be done to curb the explosions of firedamp. Hervey told him that Armstrong’s own father and two brothers had been sent to their Maker in the same month as Nelson – not as heroes at Trafalgar, he was wont to say, but as unsung colliers at Hebburn (and it was at Hebburn Pit that Davy devised his miraculous lamp).

  ‘I myself did no more than to suggest that Sir Humphry Davy turn his mind to it,’ said the bishop, softly. ‘There was no other of such eminence. But it is gratifying to learn of your serjeant-major’s sentiments.’ And then he appeared to rally. ‘But you yourself, Colonel – your name, Hervey, is of some moment in the city?’

  ‘I am only very distantly connected with the family. My father is Archdeacon of Sarum.’

  The bishop brightened the more. ‘Then you have the very best of men for a father. We were at Oxford together. I knew him then uncommonly well.’

  Hervey thanked him, if more than a little uneasy, for what might ‘the very best of men’ think if he knew that across the room was Kat, with whom he had repeatedly broken the seventh commandment?

  How, indeed, were they now to meet? Was he to present himself, or should he wait on Sir Peregrine? He could not anyway excuse himself from the present conversation; that was for the bishop. What should he say to her in any case? (He’d thought about little else since the invitation, but with no answer.) Would she even welcome words of his? He’d left matters unfinished in London in the haste to be in Brussels on the King’s business. And then in his absence had come Sir Peregrine’s appointment in Dublin … And there was the infant, Sir Peregrine’s ‘son and heir’.

  He wished he were a mile hence, or fifty – a whole continent indeed.

  ‘But you yourself, Colonel, have suffered calumnies in certain parts of the press, have you not?’

  The question, disagreeable though it was, brought him back to safer ground.

  ‘Yes, Bishop, I fear it is so, though I’m assured that the more fair-minded of the press have the ear in London.’

  It was true, but in truth too, he’d begun increasingly to resent the accusations of excessive violence. He had no great confidence in the men of politics, who were perfectly able to change with the wind when it suited them, so that while they might be grateful for his address in saving the city, they might not feel it expedient to save him from Radical clamour if it all became too much.

  The bishop now seemed to have regained his lordly resolution. ‘Then let me say that if ever it were to be not so – that you were to find yourself the subject of official censure – then I should be obliged if you would let me speak on your behalf. There is no one in this city, perhaps, who witnessed the state into which it had fallen, yet who did not bear some responsibility under law to restore the peace, and who may thereby speak indifferently.’

  Hervey expressed his gratitude.

  Sir Peregrine returned. ‘Bishop, I would detain you a moment before we proceed to dine. Colonel, would you excuse us?’

  Hervey withdrew, and steeled himself to the task, for evidently Sir Peregrine was not going to present him to his hostess, and so he must do so himself.

  He made first for a little knot halfway across the room – Shewell Bailward, Sheriff of Somerset, and his lady (though the city was not in the Somerset shrievalty); a squire of broad acres somewhere to the north of the city – an old friend of Sir Peregrine’s, apparently, whose name he didn’t catch, for his drawl verged on debility; and his wife, a woman of antique fashion and the assuredness of one who professed to reading only the Baronetage. Hervey prayed they would not be seated next to each other – as no doubt did Colonel Fergusson and Major Walcott of the board of inquiry, who were doing their best to be attentive to her opinion on Reform, which even the Duke of Wellington would have considered intemperate.

  He was about to detach himself when Sir Peregrine brought the bishop to present to them, which gave him the opportunity, he thought, to complete the crossing of the room to where Kat stood.

  However, Sir Peregrine anticipated him. ‘Colonel Hervey, I must conduct you to Lady Katherine before we proceed to dine.’

  It occurred to him as strange, suddenly, that having come most carefully upon his hour, he was the last to do so. Indeed, it troubled him.

  ‘My dear, here is Colonel Hervey come.’

  Kat turned. Candlelight was ever kind, but even so, she was exactly as he’d seen her last, the passing of eighteen months serving only to make her appearance even more pleasing. Her eyes shone quite remarkably bright, her complexion was as flawless as that of the woman he’d first met nearly fourteen years before, and her figure likewise, for she wore a dress he knew was no longer the fashion, Queen Adelaide having made known her disapproval of décolleté.

  ‘Colonel Hervey, yes, I remember – Apsley House, was it not? Or Prince Lieven’s?’

  ‘Ma’am.’ (Was it quite so necessary of Kat to affect such faint recollection?)

  ‘Where is it you are stationed now, Colonel?’

  Indeed, though her eyes were bright, they did not shine at him. He thought he saw … disdain.

  ‘Hounslow, ma’am, still.’

  And it pierced him. Kat had never possessed him body and soul, as Henrietta had (at least, he did not think she had). There were days, weeks, even perhaps whole months, when the thought of her was absent; but then, at no especial time – nothing demanding a bosom for solace – her face would come before him. But he had loved her – he thought he had loved her – and did still. How could it be otherwise when they’d shared such embraces, and laughed so much together? And there was issue, was there not, of those embraces? That is, Kat had told him so, and why should he doubt her? And he had sought out the news for himself on return from the Levant (the clerk at the office of The Times had been all consideration): ‘The twelfth of March at Rocksavage, County Roscommon, to Lady Katherine Greville, a son and heir.’

  ‘Hounslow,’ she said flatly; and stood without another word as he himself struggled to find something by way of reply or explanation, or even to satisfy the conventions of polite society. But he too stood as mute as the tomb.

  Hounslow: the last word she spoke to him that evening. For almost as if he had waited for the moment, one of Sir Peregrine’s manservants announced dinner, and the twenty guests began making their way to the dining room, Kat taking the arm of Lord Loughborough, a man ten years his junior, and below him in rank too, and yet whose title claimed precedence.

  And so it continued. She was merry at dinner, and Sir Peregrine all affability, while he himself had to endure the squiress and the bishop’s chaplain. Afterwards there was no opportunity to speak with his hostess, who found herself paid unrelenting court to by those in regimentals (or did she arrange it thus?), and when he took his leave, at his earliest opportunity, she merely acknowledged unmoved.

  By the time Hervey reached his lodgings, Corporal Johnson had long turned in – just as he’d told him to. The fire was low and the room unwelcoming but for a bottle of brandy. He wished devoutly he were at Heston – and Annie there to pour him a glass.

  And then he thanked God he wasn’t.

  Next morning, when they assembled at ten o’clock, the inquiry was informed that Colonel Brereton was indisposed, and that Major Ellard would attend on his behalf. This caused no little consternation, but General Dalbiac pronounced that, having heard at length Colonel Brereton’s submission, he saw no occasion to adjourn the proceedings. So the dreary business of taking statement after statement continued until almost two o’clock, when Sir Peregrine himself announced that the inquiry would rise for one hour – but that before it did so, ‘desirous as I am not to detain needlessly any officer or official of the city, I wish to hear the opinion of Colonel Hervey upon the matter before dismissing him to his duties’.

  Hervey came to the table again.

  ‘Colonel Hervey, on the evidence you have heard, is it your opinion that Colonel Brereton acted with all due address?’ asked the president of the inquiry.

  Hervey looked at General D
albiac, by no means certain that it was proper for him to express an opinion – only to relate upon fact. Dalbiac gave him a somewhat quizzical look, but said nothing, evidently believing that Hervey’s opinion was neither here nor there when it came to the board’s deliberations, and therefore not worth the dispute with its titular president.

  Hervey concluded likewise. In any case, a request by a superior officer was to be taken as an order; and a lawful order must be promptly obeyed. And since there was no legal counsel to pronounce on the law – this was, after all, merely an inquiry, not a court martial – he would answer promptly (though he would be circumspect too).

  ‘Sir, my opinion on any matter occurring before I arrived in Bristol in the early hours of Monday morning would, I submit, be of no value, since it would be based on hearsay only. I think it right and proper for me to say this, however: that at that time of my arriving, when the city seemed to be threatened with total destruction, I was displeased that Colonel Brereton thought fit to retire to his quarters.’

  His words caused something of a tumult, though it was not clear to him whether they proceeded from the revelation of Brereton’s inaction or from his own denunciation of it.

  The room now fell silent.

  ‘Colonel Hervey,’ continued Sir Peregrine; ‘is that opinion formed by what you yourself did in taking command and putting down the riot?’

  Hervey thought for as long as he dare. ‘It is.’

  ‘And so you conclude that if Colonel Brereton had acted with the same address, much of the destruction of the city would have been avoided?’

  It was just as Hervey had feared. He was being asked to perform the work of the inquiry itself. He certainly didn’t like the way Sir Peregrine put the question to him – sensing that he meant some mischief almost – but it was manifestly obvious that in adopting the opposite course with the rioters from that which Brereton took, he must believe that it was the superior one.