H.M.S. Surprise

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Just a sip,' said Jack. 'It will set you up for the journey. Mrs Moss does not quite like your travelling; and I must say I agree with her. However, I have bought you a bottle of Dr Mead's Instant Invigorator; it contains iron. Now just a drop, mixed with the posset.'

  'Mrs Moss—Mrs Moss—Dr Mead—iron, forsooth,' cried Stephen. 'There is a very vicious inclination in the present age, to—'

  'Great-coat, sir,' said Killick. 'Warm as toast. Now step into it before it gets cold.'

  They buttoned him up, tweaked him into shape, and carried him downstairs, one at each elbow, so that his feet skimmed the steps, to where Bonden was waiting by the chaise.

  They packed him into the stifling warmth with understanding smiles over his head as he cried out that they were stifling him with their God-damned rugs and sheepskins—did they mean to bury him alive? Enough damned straw underfoot for a regiment of horse. Killick and Bonden were cramming in the few last wisps and Jack was at the other door, about to get in, when he felt a touch upon his shoulder. Turning he saw a man with a battered face and a crowned staff in his hand—a quick glance showed two others at the horses' heads and a reinforcement of burly sheriff's officers with clubs. 'Captain Aubrey, sir?' said the man. 'In the name of the law, I must ask you to come along with me—little matter of Parkin and Clapp—judgment summons. No trouble, sir? We will walk along quietly, no scandal? I'll come behind, if you prefer it, and Joe will lead the way.'

  'Very well,' said Jack, and leaning in at the window he said, 'Stephen, I am nabbed—Parkin and Clapp—a caption. Please see Fanshaw. I'll write to you at the Grapes, maybe join you there. Killick, get my valise out. Bonden, you go along with the Doctor: look after him, eh?'

  'Which sponging-house?' asked Stephen.

  'Bolter's. Vulture Lane,' said the tipstaff. 'Every luxury, every consideration, all conweniencies.'

  'Drive on,' said Jack.

  'Maturin, Maturin, my dear Maturin,' cried Sir Joseph, 'how extremely shocked I am, how concerned, how deeply moved.'

  'Ay, ay,' said Stephen testily, 'it is showy enough to look at, no doubt, but these are only the superficial sequelae. There is no essential lesion. I shall do very well. But for the moment I was obliged to beg you to visit me here; I could not manage the stairs. It was benevolent of you to come; I wish I could receive you better.'

  'No, no, no,' cried Sir Joseph. 'I like your quarters excessively—another age—most picturesque—Rembrandt. What a splendid fire! I trust they make you comfortable?'

  'Yes, I thank you. They are used to my ways here. Perfect, if only the woman of the house did not take it upon herself to play the physician, merely because I keep my bed some hours every day. "No, ma'am," I say to her, "I will not drink Godfrey's Cordial, nor try Ward's drop. I do not tell you how to dress this salmagundy, for you are a cook; pray do not tell me how to order my regimen, for as you know, I am a medical man." "No sir," says she, "but our Sarah, which she was in just the same case as you, having been overset at the bear-baiting when six months gone, took great adwantage from Godfrey; so pray, sir, do try this spoonful." Jack Aubrey was just the same. "I do not pretend to teach you to sail your sloop or poop or whatever you call the damned machine; do not therefore pretend—" But it is all one. Nostrums from the fairground quack, old wives' remedies—bah! If rage could reunite my sinews, I should be as compact as a lithosperm.'

  Sir Joseph had intended to suggest the waters of Bath, but now he said, 'I hope your friend is well? I am infinitely obliged to him; it was a most heroic stroke. The more I reflect upon it, the more I honour him.'

  'Yes. Yes, it was. It appears to me that these coups can be brought off only by enormous pains, forethought, preparation, or by taking them on the volley; and for that a very particular quality is required, a virtue I hardly know how to name. Baraka, say the Moors. He possesses it in a high degree; and what would be criminal temerity in another man is right conduct in him. Yet I left him in a sponging-house at Portsmouth.'

  Amazement; concern.

  'Yes. his virtue seems to apply only at sea; or in his maritime character. He was arrested for debt at the instance of a coven of attorneys. Fanshaw, his agent, tells me it was for a sum of seven hundred pounds. Captain Aubrey was aware that the Spanish treasure was not to be regarded as prize, but he had no notion that the news had spread in England; nor, I must confess, had I, since there has been no official announcement. However, I must not importune you with private discontents.'

  'My dear sir, my dear Maturin—I beg you will always speak to me as a personal friend, a friend who has a great esteem for you, quite apart from all official considerations.'

  'That is kind, Sir Joseph; it is very kind. Then I will tell you, that I fear his other creditors may get wind of his renewed difficulties and so load him with processes that he will be hopelessly involved. My means do not allow me to extricate him; and although the ex gratia payment you were good enough to mention may eventually extinguish the greater part of his debt, it will leave a considerable sum. And a man may rot in prison as thoroughly for a few hundred as for ten thousand pounds.'

  'Has it not been paid?'

  'No, sir. And I detect a certain reluctance in Fanshaw to make an advance upon it—these things are so unusual, says he, the event dubious, the delay unknown, and his capital was so very much engaged.'

  'It is not my province, of course: the sluggish Transport Board and the still more sluggish Ticket Office have to pass the vouchers. But I think I can promise something like despatch. In the meantime Mr Carling will speak a private word to Fanshaw, and I am sure you will be able to draw on him for the sum you mention. Mention.'

  'Should you like a window open, Sir Joseph?'

  'If it would not incommode you. Do you not find it a trifle warm yourself?'

  'I do not. The tropic sun is what I require, and a bushel of sea-coals is its nearest equivalent. But it would scarcely answer for a normally-constituted frame, I agree. Pray take off your coat—loosen your neckcloth. I do not stand on ceremony, as you see, with my nightcap and catskin comforter.' He began to heave on a system of cords and purchases connected with the window, but sank back, muttering, 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph. No grip, no grip at all. Bonden!'

  'Sir?' said Bonden, instantly appearing at the door.

  'Just clap on to that slab-line, and tally and belay right aft, will you now?' said Stephen, glancing at Sir Joseph with covert pride.

  Bonden gaped, caught the Doctor's intention, and moved forward. But with his hand on the rope he paused and said, 'But I don't hardly know, sir, that draught would be the thing. We ain't so spry this morning.'

  'You see how it is, Sir Joseph. Discipline all to pieces; never an order carried out without endless wrangling. Damn you, sir.'

  Bonden sulkily opened the window an inch or two, poked the fire and left the room, shaking his head.

  'I believe I shall take off my coat,' said Sir Joseph. 'So a warm climate would suit, you tell me?'

  'The hotter the better. As soon as I can, I mean to go down to Bath, to wallow in the warm and sulphurous—'

  'Just what I was about to observe!' cried Sir Joseph. 'I am delighted to hear it. It was the very thing I should have recommended if'—if you had not looked so very savage, explosive, obstinate and cantankerous, he thought; but said 'if it had been my place to advise you. The very thing to brace the fibres; my sister Clarges knew of a case, not perhaps quite identical . . .' He felt he was on dangerous ground, coughed, and without a transition said, 'But to return to your friend: will not his marriage set him up? I saw the announcement in The Times, and surely I understand the young lady to be a very considerable heiress? Lady Keith told me the estate is very handsome; some of the best farm-land in the county.'

  'That is so, sure. But it is in her mother's hands entirely; and this mother is the most unromantic beast that ever urged its squat thick bulk across the face of the protesting earth; whereas Jack is not. He has the strangest notions of what constitutes a scrub, and the greatest c
ontempt for a fortune-hunter. A romantic creature. And the most pitiful liar you can imagine: when I had to tell him the Spanish treasure was not prize, but that he was a pauper again, he feigned to have known it a great while—laughed, comforted me as tender as a woman, said he had been quite resigned to it these months past, desired me not to fret—he did not mind it. But I know all that night he wrote to Sophia, and I am morally certain he released her from her engagement. Not that that will have the slightest effect upon her, the honey bun,' he added, leaning back on his pillows with a smile.

  Bonden walked in, staggering under the weight of two butts of coal, and made up the fire.

  'Sir Joseph, you will take some coffee? Perhaps a glass of Madeira? They have an excellent sercial here, that I can conscientiously recommend.'

  'Thank you, thank you—perhaps I might have a glass of water? A glass of cold water would be most acceptable.'

  'A glass of water, Bonden, if you please, and a decanter of Madeira. And if I find another raw egg beaten up in rum on the tray, Bonden; I shall fling it at your head. That,' he said, sipping his wine, 'was the most painful aspect of my journey, the breaking of my news. Even more painful than the fact that my let us call it interrogation was carried out by the French, the nation I love best.'

  'What civilised man does not? Their rulers, politicians, revolutions set apart, and this horrible engouement for Bonaparte.'

  'Just so. But these were not new men. Dutourd was an engineer, ancien régime, and Auger a dragoon—regular, traditional officers. That was the horrible part. I had thought I knew the nation through and through—lived there, studied in Paris. However, Jack Aubrey had a short way with them. Yes. As I was saying, he is a romantic creature: after this affair he tossed his sword into the sea, though I know the value he had for it. Then again, he loves to make war—no man more eager in the article of battle; but afterwards it is as though he did not feel that war consisted of killing your opponents. There is a contradiction here.'

  'I am so glad you are going to the Bath,' said Sir Joseph, whom the conflicts within the heart of a frigate-captain he had never seen interested less than the restoration of his friend's health; for although in ordinary relationships the chief of naval intelligence more nearly resembled an iceberg than a human being, he had a real affection, a real warmth of affection for Maturin. 'I am delighted, because you will meet my successor there, and I shall be down from time to time. I shall look forward extremely to enjoying your company, and to bringing you better acquainted with him.' He felt the strength of Stephen's gaze at the word successor, relished it for a moment, and went on. 'Yes. I shall be retiring presently, to my Sabine beetles; I have a little place in the Fens, a Paradise for coleoptera. How I look forward to it! Not without a certain regret, of course; yet this is lessened by the fact that I leave my concerns—our concerns—in good hands. You are acquainted with the gentleman.'

  'Indeed?'

  'Yes. When you desired me to send a confidential person to take down your report because of the state of your hands—oh, it was barbarous, barbarous, to have used you so—I begged Mr Waring to come. You sat with him for two hours!' he said, savouring the triumph.

  'You astonish me. I am amazed,' said Stephen crossly. But then a smile spread across his face: that subfuse, entirely unremarkable man, that Mr Waring, would answer charmingly. He had done his work with no fuss of any kind, efficiently; and his only questions had been immediately to the point; he had given nothing away—no special knowledge, no particular interest; and he might have been some dull, respectable civil servant in the middle reaches of the hierarchy.

  He has the greatest admiration for your work, and a thorough grasp of the situation. Admiral Sievewright will appear for him—a much better system—but you will deal directly with him when I am gone. You will agree very well, I am sure: he is a professional. It was he who dealt with the late Monsieur de La Tapetterie. I believe, by the bye, that you gave him to understand that you had some other papers or observations that lay somewhat outside the limits of your report.'

  'Yes. If you will be so good as to pass me that leather-covered object—thank you. The Confederacio burnt the house—how those fellows love a blaze—but before we left I desired their chief to remove the important papers, from which I offer you this, as a personal present for your retirement. It comes to you by right, since your name appears in it—les agissements néfastes de Sir Blaine on page three, and le perfide Sir Blaine on page seven. It is a report drawn up nominally by Colonel Auger but in fact by the far more brilliant Dutourd for your homologue in Paris, showing the present state of their military intelligence network in the eastern part of the Peninsula, including Gibraltar, with appreciation of the agents, details of payment, and so on. It is not finished, because the gentleman was cut short in mid-paragraph, but it is tolerably complete, and authentic even to the very blood stains. You will find a certain number of surprises, particular Mr Judas Griffiths; but on the whole I hope it will gratify you. Oh, that we had such a document for England! In my yesterday's state of knowledge it seemed to me a document that should pass from my hands directly to yours,' he said, handing it over.

  Sir Joseph plucked it from him with a glittering eye, hurried over to the light and sat there hunched sideways, devouring the neat pages, accounts and lists. 'The dog,' he exclaimed in an undertone. 'The cunning dog—Edward Griffiths, Edward Griffiths, say your prayers, my man—in the very embassy itself?—so Osborne was right—the hound—God bless my soul.'

  'Well,' he said aloud, 'I shall have to share this with my colleagues at the Horse Guards and the Foreign Office, of course; but the document itself I shall keep—le perfide Sir Blaine—to gloat upon in my leisured ease: such a document! I am so grateful, Maturin.' He made as though to shake hands, but recollected himself at the sight of Stephen's, touched it gently, and said, 'If it comes to exchanging surprises, I own myself beat out of the ring.'

  The postman was a rare visitor to Mapes. Mrs Williams's bailiff lived in the village, and her man of business called on her once a week; she had few relations with whom she was on letter-writing terms, and those few wrote seldom. Yet to the eldest daughter of the house the postman's step, his way of opening the iron gate, was perfectly distinct, and as soon as she heard it she flew from the still-room, along three corridors and down the stairs into the hall. She was too late, however. The butler had already placed The Ladies' Fashionable Intelligencer and a single letter on his salver and he was walking towards the breakfast-room.

  'Is there anything for me, John?' she cried.

  'Just the magazine and a threepenny one, Miss Sophia,' said the butler. 'I am taking them to my mistress.'

  Sophia instantly detected the evasion and said, 'Give me that letter at once, John.'

  'My mistress says I am to take everything to her, to prevent mistakes.'

  'You must give it to me directly. You could be taken up and hanged for keeping people's letters; it is against the law.'

  'Oh, Miss Sophie, it would be as much as my place is worth.'

  At this point Mrs Williams came out of the breakfast-room, took the post, and disappeared, her black eyebrows joining on her forehead. Sophie followed her, heard the rip of the cover, and said, 'Mama, give me my letter.'

  Mrs Williams turned her angry dark-red face to her daughter and cried, 'Do you give orders in this house, miss? For shame. I forbade you to correspond with that felon.'

  'He is not a felon.'

  'Then what is he in prison for?'

  'You know perfectly well, Mama. It is for debt.'

  'In my opinion that is worse: defrauding people of their money is far worse than knocking them on the head. It is aggravated felony. Anyhow, I have forbidden you to correspond.'

  'We are engaged to be married: we have every right to correspond. I am not a child.'

  'Stuff. I never gave more than a conditional consent, and now it is all over. I am quite ill and weary with telling you so. All these fine words of his—so much pretence. We had a
narrow escape; many unprotected women have been taken in by fine words, and high-flown specious promises with not a scrap of solid Government stock to support them when it comes to the point. You say you are not a child; but you are a child in these matters, and you need protecting. That is why I mean to read your letters; if you have nothing to be ashamed of, why should you object? Innocence is its own shield, I have always found—how cross and wicked you look, oh fie upon you, Sophia. But I am not going to let you be made a victim of by the first man that takes a fancy to your fortune, Miss, I can tell you. I shall have no hugger-mugger correspondence in my house; there has been enough of that, with your cousin going into keeping, or coming upon the town, or whatever you like to call it in your modern flash way of speaking; there was nothing of that kind when I was a girl. But then in my day no girl would ever have been so bold as to speak to her mother like that, nor so wickedly undutiful; even the most brazen chit would have died of shame first, I am very sure.' Mrs Williams's spate flowed slower during the last sentences, for she was greedily reading as she spoke. 'Anyhow,' she said, 'all this headstrong violence of yours is quite unnecessary—you have brought on my migraine for nothing—the letter is from Dr Maturin, and you need not blush to have it read:

  ' "My dear Miss Williams,

  I must beg your pardon for dictating this letter; a misfortune to my hand makes it difficult for me to write. I at once executed the commission you were kind enough to honour me with, and I was so fortunate as to obtain all the books on your list through my bookseller, the respectable Mr Bentley, who allows me a discount of thirty per cent." ' Something like pinched approval showed in the lower parts of Mrs Williams's face.' "What is more, I have a messenger, in the shape of the Reverend Mr Hinksey, the new rector of Swiving Monachorum, who will be passing through Champflower on his way to be read in, or inducted, as I believe I should say." Quite right; we say inducted for a clergyman. La, Sophie, we shall be the first to see him!' Mrs Williams's moods were violent, but changeable. ' "He has a vast carriage, and being as yet unprovided with a family, undertakes to place Clerk of Eldin, Duhamel, Falconer and the rest on the seat; which will save you not only the waiting, but also the sum of half a crown, which is not to be despised." No, indeed: eight of 'em make a pound; not that some fine gentlemen seem to think so. "I rejoice to hear that you will be at Bath, since this will afford me the pleasure of paying my respects to your Mama—I shall be there from the twentieth. But I trust this visit may not mean a decline in her health, or any uneasiness about her former complaint." He is always so considerate about my sufferings, He really might do for Cissy: if she could get him, that would mean a physician in the family, always at hand. And what does a little Popery signify? We are all Christians, I believe. "Pray tell her that if I can be of any service, I am at her command: my direction will be, at Lady Keith's, in Landsdowne Crescent. I shall be alone, as Captain Aubrey is detained in Portsmouth." He is quite of my way of thinking, I see; has cut off all connections, like a well-judging man. "And so, my dear Miss Williams, with my best compliments to your Mama, to Miss Cecilia and to Miss Frances . . ."