The Passage to India Read online

  In that party was an officer of the commander-in-chief’s staff who had found himself in the city when trouble began and had volunteered his services. The mayor, much shaken by the escapade but now sufficiently recovered, turned to him and said, ‘Major Mackworth, I was assured of the military to keep the peace, but there is evidently neither the men nor the will. I beg you, if you please, to do what you can in that regard. I know not how.’

  Major Mackworth was not, however, a man merely to volunteer and then await orders; he had already resolved on his course. ‘Mr Mayor, I would that you summon every constable, and as many others as may be sworn, and make this place safe as your headquarters. I myself shall go to the recruiting office to find what Colonel Brereton does. Meanwhile, I would that one of your men go to Reeves’s hotel and present my compliments and ask Lieutenant St Alban of the Sixth Light Dragoons to come at once.’

  II

  Reform

  The Close, later

  IT WAS A handsome canonry, the bounty of Queen Anne, perhaps, when that virtuous woman had appropriated the first fruits and tenths for the relief of the clergy, which before the Reformation the bishop of Rome had enjoyed, and afterwards King Henry. Or did he mistake his history? No matter; his people could now at last live tolerably comfortable of a winter, for unlike the rectory at Horningsham, here the roof did not leak, the windows fitted close, and the chimney drew well.

  But not merely live comfortable; live in a manner, at last, that was their due, and proper to their riper years. Hervey’s bedchamber, as his mother had taken to calling the excellent sleeping arrangements, enjoyed a prospect of the west front of the cathedral that Mr Constable had lately made famous by his triumph at the Royal Academy, and one which Mr Turner, a painter of whom Hervey now heard tell was even greater than Constable, and long acquainted with these parts, had already done so much to proclaim. The misty dusk of this last-but-one day of October had however curtailed his pleasure in the west front, and instead he had bent to one or two letters that were outstanding. He had then bathed, and after dressing for dinner at what was the fashionable hour of the Close, descended the noble staircase to pass a quiet evening in the company of family.

  It was only his second visit to the new benefice. Two Easters had passed since his father had been installed in this his only preferment worthy of the name in all his long years of service to the Church of England. That, said his mother, was because he was too unbending a Laudian, though in fact his monograph on Laudian decorum was now in its third printing and had brought him approbation in some quarters, and a little money. (Taste in the re-ordering of services had of late been tending towards that which King Charles’s faithful archbishop and martyr had endeavoured to impose.) The preferment may have come unjustly late, but come it had, and with it – Laus Deo! – three floors, eight bays, some serviceable attics and a garden both productive and pleasant (from which, indeed, the archdeacon could cast a fly on the tranquil water of the Avon). Hervey could only wish his parents long contentment here, and resolve to visit more often – which was the frequent request of his mother and the ever-repeated entreaty of his sister.

  It was not as if the King’s enemies detained him any longer. It was now almost two years since his appointment to command of the 6th Light Dragoons (Princess Augusta’s Own), and but for apprehending common felons in various breaches of the King’s peace, and a largely bloodless skirmish with a patrol of French cavalry on the border of Hainaut (quite remarkably near the place where in 1815 he had seen so many homicidal Frenchmen as he wished never to see again), his command had been a most peaceful one. Even when, in the lust for Reform – or simply for glass – the mob had broken the windows of Apsley House, the Sixth in their barracks at Hounslow had not been troubled. And, in truth, although there had scarce been a year in which his sword had not drawn blood before that promotion, and might therefore be glad to rest a while in its scabbard (for who knew when the trumpet would call the regiment to arms in a foreign field?), he found the routine of Hounslow, with its alternating requirements of guard duty and ceremonial at Windsor and London, and acting from time to time as Mr Peel’s auxiliaries, tedious – enervating, dispiriting even. Sometimes, especially when he dined alone, as increasingly he found himself, he would lay down his fork and his book or pen and wonder what had brought him to this state of alienation. It was not, however, a matter for contemplation this evening.

  Lieutenant-Colonel (and Brevet Colonel) Matthew Hervey, despite the slowness with which command of his regiment had been won (there were men ten years his junior now commanding who had never been shot over, though they did possess the inestimable qualification of great wealth and an entry in Mr Burke’s new Peerage), was still known to the Horse Guards as a coming man. The commander-in-chief himself, Lord Hill, was assiduous in pressing his cause and had personally authorized the brevet in recognition of his ‘address and percipient judgement’ in the affair of the ‘French joust’, as he rather archly called it. He had sent him to Brussels with half the regiment to mark with their former allies the decade and a half since the victory of Waterloo; but instead, Hervey had found himself in the middle of a revolution. The Belgae – horum omnium fortissimi, as Caesar had it: the bravest of the three peoples of Gaul – had risen in defiance of the Congress of Vienna, which had made of them a province of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and proclaimed their independence of the Dutch king. He, Hervey, had then, largely on his own initiative, kept the probing French patrols at arm’s length, so that Monsieur Talleyrand could not make of les Belges a French province instead. He had, in the words of a letter home, gone to one country and left another without crossing any border – and received a star in the process (although, being but brevet rank, a star that must remain concealed).

  He was content enough, though, for his original promotion to lieutenant-colonel had been without payment – reward for past service, contrived, it was said, by both Lords Hill and Wellington. If ever the time came to sell out, his fortune would be made (George Bingham – Lord Bingham – they said, had paid £20,000 for command of his regiment); and if promotion to general rank were to come, he could accept it without regret at losing his outlay (for on promotion to general rank, the lieutenant-colonelcy of a regiment reverted to the Horse Guards – the headquarters of the commander-in-chief – without recompense). So although he remained in command of his regiment to no great advantage in Hounslow, he held the rank of brevet colonel on the gradation list, at call to take command of a field force when the nation was next in peril. Or so ran the rule. He was most fortunately placed.

  In truth, though, what he wished for was diversion. Even his particular friend Edward Fairbrother had deserted him (that is, taken leave of absence to visit with his people – on both sides of the blanket – in Jamaica). Command was a lonely business, it was said – at least, ultimately it was – and it therefore went hard with him each evening to return to a house (his residence at nearby Heston) that lacked the sort of intimacy that made command tolerable, indeed agreeable.

  There was, of course, Lance-Corporal Johnson, who lived in adjoining quarters – very comfortably got up, too, in what had been one of the old coach-houses – and was on hand to attend him from reveille to retreat. Unless likely to enter within the field of vision of Regimental Serjeant-Major Armstrong, who had been a ‘Hervey man’ even longer than Johnson, his faithful groom enjoyed the status of plain clothes, and was more than glad of the life of quietude after so many escapades of recent years. But there was no mistress of the house, save for Mrs James, his house-serjeant’s wife – an admirable housekeeper – for Kezia remained, as she had throughout his command, at her people’s seat in Hertfordshire. Indeed he had not seen her since his unfortunate visit at Walden in the deep chill of winter the year before.

  It had been a cold coming and a cold going. He could not account for their estrangement. It had begun almost at once, at the very outset of their marriage. True, he’d proposed in haste, wanting a wife and a mother
for his daughter (for Georgiana had lived only with Elizabeth, his sister, and although it suited him, he could not in his heart believe it was best); but by that token, Kezia had accepted with equal haste. Why, he could not tell. Perhaps her status as widow troubled her, for she too had a child? Her late husband, his former commanding officer, had been the best of men. Perhaps having remarried in haste she then thought it dishonoured his memory, and now repented at leisure? How could he know? At Walden she had seemed so distant, so … distrait, that he feared she was … well, not altogether of sound mind. And yet her composure that day, while icy – her practice at the pianoforte, even, as he stood listening, unseen – suggested nothing of the sort. All he could conclude was that he had married a woman he did not know. He had done so in good faith, he told himself, although it was true that he had also desired her greatly and wanted to put away Kat from his thoughts, ‘considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained … for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continence might marry, and keep themselves undefiled …’ Now he must live with the consequences, ‘forsaking all other … so long as ye both shall live’.

  The vow troubled him of course. But he was of a mind to be so active always that it did not trouble him to distraction – certainly not (he trusted) in the exercise of his command. So despite there being for the most part nothing to do at Hounslow but, as he himself put it, the work of an accountant or storekeeper, which in peace gave copious employment to an army of quill-drivers to ensure that not a pound of beef was mis-eaten or a bushel of corn fed to an animal other than was on the strength, he filled his day as best he could without intruding too much on the business of his troop captains, and the evenings without claiming too much the company of his officers at mess, or indeed requiring them at his own table. Once or twice a week he would drive to London and dine at the United Service Club, sometimes with Fairbrother, whose comfortable arrangements at Hounslow he was also amply acquainted with, and from time to time there would be some sort of dinner of state requiring his presence, though not quite so many in these past twelve months with the fall of the Duke of Wellington’s ministry. More often than not, though, he found himself enjoying a solitary supper, working on his translation of a lengthy treatise on war, which an officer of the Prussian general staff, an acquaintance from his late mission in the near Levant, had caused to be sent his way. It was not an easy work to render in English, not at all an easy work (not least for its being still in proof), but it contained much with which he found himself sympathetic, and when he was at work on it, all other thoughts were banished.

  He wished that Elizabeth were here in Wiltshire now, with him and their parents at table. He could not have known that London would have call on her, though he might have been more prompt in writing, and more considerate in what her first duties (that is, of a wife) entailed, rather than supposing her to be at his own call, as ever she had been. He was now even more determined that, saving for the calls of duty, he would travel to Heytesbury before next summer’s camp on the Downs was over, and stay a proper while with her and the baron. Her marriage had come late, and to a widower with children – and a wearer of the Waterloo Medal, a Freiherr (‘von und zu’), of the King’s German Legion. He liked the baron; how could he not? Though at first he’d been uncertain. He wished above all that Georgiana were here, for he supposed there was a good deal to talk about. She must be happy in so large a family and so well-found an establishment as at Heytesbury, but she was rising fourteen and must have her own mind in these matters.

  He firmly resolved, there and then, to visit on her birthday – even, perhaps, to have her stay at Hounslow for a day or so. She might ride with him on the heath. It need not remind him too painfully of doing so with Henrietta.

  The bell rang so loud that it carried to the dining room.

  Soon afterwards the housekeeper appeared, uneasy. ‘Please, sir, there is a Mr St Alban come to see the colonel.’

  Hervey looked puzzled. He rose. ‘I’ll—’

  ‘No,’ said his father; ‘Hill, please show in Mr St Alban.’

  An officer of the Sixth, not yet twenty-five, upright and tall, in a plain coat which even in the candlelight showed evidence of galloping, entered and made his apologies.

  Hervey explained: ‘Father, Mama – this is Edward St Alban, my adjutant.’

  The adjutant of the 6th Light Dragoons bowed again.

  ‘Mr St Alban, you are wet through, sir,’ said Mrs Hervey. ‘Hill, take Mr St Alban’s coat and hold it to the fire, and search out something suitable in its place.’

  ‘Really, ma’am, I am tolerably comfortable, now that I am come in. The rain eased as we came to Wilton.’

  ‘Then permit us to make you wholly rather than just tolerably comfortable.’

  St Alban gave up his coat.

  ‘Well, I am all eagerness to learn what brings you here,’ said Hervey, ‘but first, take a chair and some wine.’

  St Alban gladly accepted both, although he looked more brightened by his exertions than fatigued.

  ‘You’ve come alone?’

  ‘With Serjeant Acton, Colonel.’

  Hervey’s mother glanced at the housekeeper, who went to find him, Hervey’s covering serjeant.

  ‘Very well. Manifestly there is something untoward in Bristol?’

  St Alban nodded. ‘Bristol is in such a tumult as I never saw in any place, and I fear the magistrates lose all control. The constabulary is ineffectual, and … I am sorry to say that the military is inadequate. That is, both its numbers and its management, which is why I am come.’

  Hervey was at once transformed. Indeed his instinct was to ready himself at once, but as he could not make Bristol – fifty miles distant – in much less than five hours, it would not hurt to enquire a little more. Besides, a show of serenity never went amiss. ‘Tell me of events since the beginning.’

  In truth the regiment’s sojourn to Bristol ought not to have been a thing of any moment. Certainly not an affair of any heat. In the great panoply accompanying the ancient assizes, there was supposed to be little for them to do but add lustre to the King’s justice, the prospect of which had made for a pleasant change from the tedium of Hounslow. In any case, the city lay within an entirely different major-general’s command – the Western, rather than the Home, district. It was only Hervey’s brevet that had recommended him to the authorities of England’s second city – as they were jealous to call it – and it had been but his own (very proper) pride that had made his presence the occasion for an escort. The adjutant, with the serjeant-major and their suite, had therefore proceeded to the city two days before and taken quarters in College Place.

  ‘I ought first to say that I spoke with Major Mackworth, who sends his compliments and bids you hasten.’

  ‘Lord Hill’s aide-de-camp?’

  St Alban nodded. ‘He’d been in Clifton and came to the Mansion House on learning of the commotion.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We hadn’t long been in the city before it became apparent there was a very great objection to the recorder,’ he began.

  ‘Sir Charles Wetherell.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Archdeacon Hervey’s ears pricked. ‘Wetherell? I don’t doubt there is objection. He made the most intemperate speech in parliament against Reform, just before the dissolution. “Jacobinical and revolutionary” he called the bill. And his father as obliging a man as I ever knew – late dean of Hereford before going back to Oxford, and—’

  He checked himself, not so old and cosseted in the cathedral close as not to recognize superfluity of detail.

  ‘I can’t comprehend what it should be to the people of Bristol, however,’ said Hervey, frowning. ‘As I understand it, the city returns two members – both of them Whigs – and stands to gain no more under the bill.’

  As ever on the subject of reform, St Alban found himself in an awkward position. He was no Radical, but – to Hervey at least – his W
higgish views tended in that direction. But of all the subalterns, Hervey found him the most thoughtful. The Honourable Edward St Alban, though not long commissioned and only lately promoted from cornet, had shown much address the year before, both at Windsor and in what London was now pleased to call Belgium.

  ‘The feeling for Reform as a principle is strong,’ he said, not quite as if he were at a political meeting, ‘but …’ (There followed a discourse on the Bristol Political Union, the pertinence of which Hervey did not entirely see, though he thought it eloquent.) ‘And it doesn’t help that the bishop cast his vote against it too. And with the usual influx of roughs, the city was not a pleasant sight. I went to see the recorder’s arrival yesterday. He came along the Bath road to the city boundary, where he was supposed to transfer to the sheriff’s carriage for the processional entry, but there was a most violent welcoming committee, hurling stones at the coaches, which the constables could only get away with some difficulty. I followed – on foot – the entire way to the Guildhall, and I never saw so many people and such a tumult. Several constables suffered ill in the rain of brickbats.’

  ‘And what of the military?’ (There was no garrison in Bristol.)

  ‘The mayor applied to the Home Office a fortnight before, and three troops of cavalry are at hand, if much under-strength – two of the Fourteenth, from Gloucester, and one of the Third heavies, from

  Trowbridge; fewer than a hundred in all. They’re under the orders of the inspecting field officer of the district, and … with respect, I fear he has not the mettle for it.’

  ‘With respect’ was ever a convenient device for avoiding a charge of insubordination, but with adjutancy it was different. Hervey had told St Alban – as he had his predecessor – that it was no use his being adjutant unless he knew the mind of his commanding officer, and that he might always speak his own with absolute candour.