Allan Mallinson: Nizams Daughters

‘Ay, I keep forgettin’. It’s a bit of a bummy fer me, though, since I’ll now ’ave to stand in t’front rank at stables parade.’

Hervey’s smile widened yet more. ‘You may not be here that long!’

Johnson scooped up a fresh pile of droppings with the clapboards and threw them into a wicker skip.‘When do we ’ave t’go?’

‘Tomorrow. And we take Jessye with us. Do you think you’ll be able to lay hands on a horse ambulance?’

‘In France?’ gasped Johnson in astonishment; ‘they eat their ’orses ‘ere as soon as they go lame!’

Hervey frowned, unsure if this half-truth were to Johnson’s mind a serious objection. ‘There must be an ambulance at the duke’s headquarters — or sprung tumbrils for racehorses somewhere in the city.’

‘All right, sir: I’ll ask one of t’other grooms to go ’n ’ave a look. I’d go meself but tha’ll want all thee kit gettin’ ready. If there is one we’ll find it.’

‘Thank you, Johnson,’ Hervey replied softly, gripping his shoulder; ‘I would not have split the two of you, and I would not wish to go to India without her.’

‘Well,’ said his groom with a shrug, ‘it’s nice te know which of us counts fer most!’

‘You know very well what I mean,’ replied Hervey, not inclined to flatter him any more.

‘And can I ask why we’re gooin’ t’India, sir?’

‘You may ask, yes, but I would rather you didn’t.’

Johnson whistled beneath his breath.

‘Don’t make that silly noise. It’s just that I am not able to speak of it at present.’ He had no wish to deceive his own groom (though he recognized what an inauspicious beginning to covert work that was).

‘Right enough Mr — Cap’n — ’Ervey, sir! I’ll not say another word abaht it.’

All this had been conducted from either side of the bar of Jessye’s stall, and Hervey now ducked under it to take a closer look at her. She gave him a snuffling welcome which flecked his jacket, and then proceeded to rub her nose dry on his sleeve. ‘Her eye is bright enough,’ he concluded: ‘she’s certainly on the mend. Have you been giving her anything?’

‘Mothballs and nightshade for ’er cough to start with. Then iron tonic.’

Hervey nodded. ‘Has there been anything else?’

‘No, she’s been as right as rain. An’ if yer ’ave a look, them windgalls ’ave got no worse.’

He felt down each fore cannon to the fetlock joint. The swellings which had been so prominent after they had reached Paris — as with so many of the regiment’s horses after the work they had been forced to do in the preceding weeks — were, if anything, less pronounced. ‘See,’ said Hervey, with a mild tone of triumph, ‘I told you blistering wouldn’t be necessary. Windgalls generally look after themselves if you leave well alone.’

Johnson smiled thinly.

Hervey recognized the admission. ‘Come, then, man: what have you been doing with them?’

Johnson spoke boldly again. ‘Tha knows that iodine stuff that Mr Selden were always on abaht?’

It was strange how Selden’s name should crop up again so soon. ‘Ye-es?’

‘Works a treat.’

‘How did you find iodine?’ asked Hervey, dubiously. It had never been freely available before: Selden had had his smuggled from France as if it were brandy.

‘Them Frenchies use it all t’time.’

‘You have been… progging — in the French lines?’

‘Ay.’

Hervey smiled as he shook his head.

‘An look at ’er shoes: they’s saved ’er a lot of strain.’

He picked up her near fore. ‘Calkins! You know I don’t trust calkins.’ But he was much taken by the workmanship. ‘Who made them? I’ve never seen neater!’

‘Oh… a farrier.’

Hervey’s ear was attuned enough to Johnson’s Yorkshire to alert him at once to the purposeful absence of the definite article. ‘ Which farrier?’

‘You don’t know ’im.’

‘ Johnson! ’

‘Well, when ah were gettin t’iodine—’

‘You don’t mean that you have had Jessye shod by a damned Frog!’

Johnson admitted his delinquency.

‘Well, I have to say these shoes appear to do their job well,’ he conceded with a heavy sigh, ducking under the bar again. ‘She’s unlikely to see a set put on so faithfully where we are going.’ There was hardly time, anyway, to be talking about the finer points of farriery. ‘Now, I shall have to be about some pressing matters. Come to my quarters after evening stables, if you will. And try any stratagem to get a box on wheels for her meanwhile!’

The last thing he expected to see when he returned to the Sixth’s mess that afternoon was an express from Longleat, and it was all he could do to escape the curiosity of the half-dozen other occupants of that superior billet to find a private corner in which to discover the condition of his engagement to Henrietta Lindsay. That message from London, composed in half-bewildered haste in the ADCs’ office at the Horse Guards after he had learned of his appointment, might so easily have been received with ill favour. Before breaking the seal he made a rapid estimate to assess whether it could have been written after receipt of his own, but his calculation was inconclusive, and he therefore opened it with much uneasiness.

Longleat

11th August

Dearest Matthew,

Be not in the slightest troubled by duty taking you from me once more, for the relief — and excessive pride — which I and all your family feel on learning of your circumstances quite outweighs our dismay at your temporary estrangement from us. We read daily of the difficulties under which the Duke of Wellington labours in bringing a just peace to France, and if your special facilities might be in any way supportive of those efforts then your absence is more happily to be borne.

He sighed, with considerable relief. Here, indeed, was a handsome understanding of his hasty departure for Paris. That much boded well for when she received the letter he had yet to write explaining that their nuptials must be postponed sine die . His stomach had scarcely stopped churning since Colonel Grant had revealed the immediacy of his mission, and only the urgency of his domestic arrangements had kept him from complete seizure. He read on, cheered by this beginning.

I know of nothing, however, which indisposes my being with you in these labours, and I shall therefore make haste to Paris as soon as I have my guardian’s leave. I send these brief presents to you now by the speediest means so that you might be assured of our great love and my wish to join you at once. Lord John Howard, who has been all kindness in bringing this news, believes that with a fair wind in the Channel I might be in Paris before the third week in this month is out. Pray that it should be so, dearest!

Your most affectionate

Henrietta

His mind was racing even faster than it had at the Horse Guards. He must make himself compute it properly: what was the earliest she might arrive in France if the marquess gave her leave at once? He had to try his fingers to keep count of the stages. Longleat to… Dover? A day and a night? The crossing — a day, a night? And if she left on the twelfth, early?… Great heavens but it could be done: she might arrive in France this very evening! He rushed from his room to summon the best man for what he had in mind, and then set pen to paper to explain to Henrietta where his new orders were to take him, and their immediacy. Writing at great speed, without time for circumspection, he found himself penning endearments so direct that he blushed as he reread them, unlike some of the lame affairs he had tried hitherto. By the time the knock came at his door, he was positively fired with excitement. ‘Corporal Collins, how is your big French charger?’ he asked, still writing hurriedly.