The Letter of Marque

by Patrick O'Brian

  Sir Joseph's rarely-used long dining-room could not be faulted: it was old-fashioned—walnut rather than satinwood or mahogany—but the severest shrew could not have found a speck of dust; the twelve gleaming broad-bottomed chairs were exactly aligned, the cloth was as white as newly-fallen snow and as smooth, for Mrs Barlow would have none of those folds whose rigour so often spoilt the pure flow of linen; and of course the silver blazed again. Yet Sir Joseph fidgeted about, tweaking a fork here, a knife there, and asking Mrs Barlow whether she was sure the removes would be hot and whether there would be plenty of pudding—'the gentleman is particularly fond of pudding, so is Lord Panmure'—until her answers grew shorter and shorter. And then he said 'But perhaps we should alter the whole arrangement. The gentleman is wounded in the leg, and no doubt he. should be able to stretch it out, on the leg-rest in the library. To do so comfortably he would have to be at the end of the table. But which leg, and which end?'

  'If this goes on another five minutes,' said Mrs Barlow inwardly, 'I shall throw the whole dinner out into the street, turtle soup, lobsters, side-dishes, pudding and all.'

  But before the five minutes had passed, before Blaine had even displaced more than a couple of chairs by way of experiment, the guests began to arrive. They were an interesting body of men: apart from the two colleagues Blaine had invited from Whitehall, four were Fellows of the Royal Society, one was a politically active bishop, others were country gentlemen of considerable estate who either owned their boroughs or represented their counties; and of the two City men one was an eminent astronomer. None of them belonged to the Opposition, but on the other hand none of them held any office or desired any decoration; none was dependent on the Ministry and all of those who had seats in the Commons or the Lords were capable of abstaining or even of voting against the government on an issue where they strongly disagreed with official policy. And those who did not have seats were nevertheless men whose advice carried weight with the administration.

  For occasions of this kind Sir Joseph hired men-servants from Gunter's, and the splendid butler had announced nine gentlemen before calling out 'Dr Maturin and Mr Aubrey.' The gathering looked eagerly at the door, and there, next to Maturin's slight form, they saw an exceptionally tall, broad-shouldered man, thin in his black coat, pale and severe. Part of the pallor and severity was caused by extreme hunger—Jack's stomach was used to the naval dinner time, several hours before that of fashionable London—but his wounds had their effect upon his colour too, while almost the whole of his severity was an armour against the least hint of disrespect.

  Blaine hurried forward with his congratulations, his thanks for this visit and his anxious hope that Mr Aubrey's wounds did not cause him very great inconvenience—would he like a leg-rest at table? He was followed, sooner than etiquette allowed, by a round pink man in a cherry-coloured coat whose face fairly radiated goodwill and friendliness. 'You will not remember me, sir,' he said with a particularly engaging bow, 'but I had the honour of meeting you once at the bedside of my nephew William—my sister Babbington's boy—when he was hurt during that glorious action of yours in the year four—one of your glorious actions in the year four. My name was Gardner until the other day. Now it is Meyrick.'

  'I remember it perfectly, my lord,' said Jack. 'William and I were speaking of you not a fortnight ago. May I offer my best congratulations?'

  'Not at all, not at all,' cried Lord Meyrick. 'The boot is on the other foot entirely. Being shifted from one House to another is not to be compared with cutting out a frigate, I believe.' He said several other most obliging things, and although his words were mostly drowned by the greetings of the men Jack already knew and by Sir Joseph's introduction to the rest, their evident sincerity could not but please. None of the other guests quite came up to Lord Meyrick—they lacked his complete simplicity—yet their cordial, unfeigned congratulations would have satisfied a man with a far higher notion of his deserts than Aubrey. His reserve and severity—never natural to him until these last months—quite vanished; and the change was made all the quicker by Sir Joseph's sherry, which spread an amiable glow in his pinched, abstemious belly.

  Babbington's uncle absolutely insisted upon giving him precedence, and Jack sat at Blaine's right hand in a pleasant state of mind and a lively anticipation of the turtle soup that his practised nose had long since detected. The Bishop said grace; the promise became reality, green calipash and amber calipee swimming in their juice; and after some moments Jack said to Blaine, 'These classical fellows may prate about ambrosia till they go black in the face, but they did not know what they were talking about. They never ate turtle soup.'

  'Are there no turtles in the Mediterranean, sir? You astonish me.'

  'Oh yes, there are turtles, but only loggerheads and the sort they make tortoiseshell of. The true turtle, from the ambrosian point of view, is the green one; and to find her, you must go to the West Indies or Ascension Island.'

  'Ascension Island!' cried Lord Meyrick. 'What vistoes that calls to mind! What oceans of vast eternity! In my youth I longed to travel, sir; I longed to view the Great Wall of China, the deadly Upas Tree, the flux and reflux of the fabled Nile, the crocodile in tears; but in crossing to Calais I found it would not answer. My frame would not bear the motion. I waited in that vile town until a day of total calm, a true halcyon day, and then I was rowed gently back, still half dead and far gone in melancholy. Since then I have travelled, fought, suffered, survived and conquered solely in the person of William. Such things he tells me, sir! How you and he, in the Sophie of fourteen guns, took the Cacafuego of thirty-two . . .' And so he went on, with an accurate account of Aubrey's battles—and Aubrey had been unusually favoured in the way of action—until the two country gentlemen on the other side of the table gazed at Jack with renewed respect, even wonder, for it was in fact a most uncommon record, and one told with complete sincerity.

  'Mr Aubrey,' murmured Blaine, interrupting the flow just where the Surprise was sinking a Turk in the Ionian, 'I believe the Bishop means to drink to you.'

  Jack looked down the table and there indeed was the Bishop smiling at him and holding up his glass. 'A glass of wine with you, Mr Aubrey,' he called.

  'With the utmost pleasure, my lord,' replied Jack, bowing. 'I drink to your very great happiness.'

  This was followed by several more glasses with other gentlemen, and Stephen, half way down the table on the other side, observed that the colour was coming back into Jack's face: perhaps rather more colour than he could have wished. A little later he also observed that his friend had launched into anecdote. Jack Aubrey's anecdotes were rarely successful—his talent did not lie that way—but he knew his role as a guest and now with a candid look of pleasure at his immediate neighbours he began, 'There was a bishop in our part of the country when I was a boy, the bishop before Dr Taylor; and when he was first appointed he made a tour of his command—of his diocese. He went everywhere, and when he came to Trotton he could hardly make out that such a scattered place—just a few fishermen's huts along the shore, you know—could be a parish. He said to Parson West, an excellent fisherman himself, by the way; he taught me to sniggle for eels. He asked Parson West . . .' Jack frowned slightly and Stephen clasped his hands. This was the point where the anecdote might so easily break down again, an unhappy echo of the word place appearing as plaice in the bishop's question. 'He asked Parson West, "Have you many souls here?" ' Stephen relaxed. 'And Parson West replied, "No, my lord; only flounders, I am afraid." '

  Jack Aubrey, pleased at the kind reception of his tale, pleased at having got it all out in one piece, and pleased at having fulfilled his social duties for some time to come, applied himself to his excellent mutton, and the talk flowed round him. Someone at the Bishop's end spoke of the curious French ignorance of English titles and ways, and one of the Whitehall men said 'Yes. When Andréossy was here as Bonaparte's envoy he wrote to my chief as Sir Williamson, Esquire. But he did worse than that; he intrigued with the wife of one of
our colleagues, a Frenchwoman. And having heard that the Devonshires were in a very sad way, he sent her to the Duchess with a plain downright barefaced offer of ten thousand pounds for Cabinet secrets. The Duchess told Fox.'

  'It is ignorance that will lose the French this war,' said his neighbour. 'They began by cutting off poor Lavoisier's head, observing that the Republic did not need men of science.'

  'How can you speak of French ignorance, when you compare their attitude towards balloons with ours?' cried the man opposite him. 'Surely you must recall that from the beginning they had an aerostatic corps and that they won the battle of Fleurus almost entirely because of the accurate information derived from balloons poised at an immense height over the enemy? His numbers, his dispositions, his movements were all open to view. But what do we do about balloons? Nothing.'

  'The Royal Society decided against them,' said the Bishop. 'I particularly remember the reply when the King offered to pay for some trials, because I was in the closet when it came: "No good whatsoever can be expected from such experiments" said the Society.'

  'A part of the Society,' said one of the Fellows sharply. 'A very small part of the Society, a committee largely made up of mathematicians and antiquaries.'

  The other Fellows present disagreed with this and with each other; but Aubrey and Maturin, though much attached to the Society, were often abroad; they had little knowledge of its often passionate internal politics and less interest; neither took any part in the discussion. Stephen devoted his whole attention to his right-hand neighbour, who had made an ascent, and a glorious ascent, at the time of the first enthusiasm before the war. He was too young and foolish, he said, to have recorded any of the technical details, but he did still retain that first vivid sense of astonishment awe wonder and delight when, after a slow, grey and anxious passage through mist, the balloon rose up into the sunlight: all below them and on every hand there were pure white mountains of cloud with billowing crests and pinnacles, and above a vast sky of a darker, far darker, purer blue than he had ever seen on earth. A totally different world, and one without any sound. The balloon rose faster in the sun—they could see their shadow on the sea of cloud—faster and faster. 'Dear Lord,' he said, 'I can see it now; how I wish I could describe it. That whole enormous jewel above, the extraordinary world below, and our fleeting trace upon it—the strangest feeling of intrusion.'

  The cloth was drawn: the time for toasts was coming and Jack rather dreaded them. His wounds, his recent milk-and-water diet and the lack of exercise had lowered his resistance and even from the moderate amount he had drunk already his head was not as solid as he could wish. He need not have been afraid. After they had drunk the King, Sir Joseph sat musing for a little while, fitting two walnut-shells together: on his left hand Lord Panmure said 'Not long ago that toast stuck in a quite extraordinary number of throats—quite extraordinary. Only yesterday Princess Augusta told my wife that she never really believed in her rank until the Cardinal of York was dead.'

  'Poor lady,' said Blaine. 'Her scruples did her honour, though I fancy they were highly treasonable; but she may be easy in her mind now. It would never have stuck in your throat, I dare say say, sir?'—turning to Jack. But Jack was still following an account of Babbington's description of HMS Leopard's encounter with an iceberg in the Antarctic and her repair on Desolation Island; he had to be disengaged and the question put to him again. 'Oh no,' he said. 'I have always followed Nelson's advice in that as I have in everything else, as far as my powers have allowed me. I drink to the King with total conviction.'

  Blaine smiled, nodded, and turned back to Lord Panmure: 'What do you say to taking our coffee in the drawing-room? It is so much easier to circulate, and I know there are many gentlemen who would like to speak to Aubrey.'

  Many of them did indeed speak to Aubrey, and as the evening wore on Stephen saw him growing paler and paler. 'Sir Joseph, my dear,' he said at last, 'I must take my patient away and put him to bed. Please may his servant be told to fetch him a chair?'

  The servant in question, Preserved Killick, was drunk, drunk even by naval standards, incapable of movement, but Padeen was at hand and sober and in time he brought two chairs carried by Irish chairmen, the only ones who could understand him. During the delay one of the Whitehall men, Mr Soames, drew Jack aside and asked him where he was staying—asked too whether he might have the honour of waiting on him: there were one or two questions he would like to ask.

  'By all means: I should be very happy,' said Jack; but he had almost entirely forgotten him the next day, when Mrs Broad of the Grapes announced 'Mr Soames to see you, sir.'

  Jack received him with decent urbanity, although yesterday's unaccustomed food and wine were still with him, hanging like a debauch, while his leg wound was itching extremely and his spirits were ruffled by an interview with the sullen, dogged Killick, who among other things had lost, or failed to pack, a book promised to Heneage Dundas and now to be carried out by a friend bound for the North American station.

  They exchanged remarks on the previous evening, Sir Joseph's capital wine, the near certainty of rain later in the day, and then 'I find a certain difficulty in opening my errand,' said Mr Soames, eyeing the tall figure opposite him. 'I am most unwilling to seem busy.'

  'Not at all,' said Jack in a reserved tone.

  'The fact of the matter is that I have been asked to have a few unofficial words with you on the possibility of a favourable outcome, in the event of a proper solicitation for a free pardon.'

  'I do not understand you, sir. A pardon for what?'

  'Why, sir, for that—for that unfortunate affair at the Guildhall, to do with the Stock Exchange.'

  'But surely, sir, you must be aware that I pleaded not guilty? That I said upon my honour that I was not guilty?'

  'Yes, sir, I remember it perfectly.'

  'Then how in God's name am I to be forgiven for what I have not done? How can I conceivably solicit a free pardon when I am innocent?' Jack had begun the interview in a state of strong, ill-defined, diffused irritation; he was now white with anger and he went on 'Do not you see that if I ask for a pardon I am giving myself the lie? Proclaiming that there is something to be forgiven?'

  'It is no more than a formality—it might almost be called a legal fiction—and it must affect the question of your eventual reinstatement.'

  'No, sir,' said Jack, rising. 'I cannot see the matter as a formality at all. I am aware that neither you nor the gentlemen who desired you to speak to me means any offence, but I must beg you to return them my compliments and state that I see the matter in a different light.'

  'Sir, will you not consider for a while, and take advice?'

  'No, sir; these are things a man must decide for himself.'

  'I regret it extremely. Must I then say you will not entertain the suggestion?'

  'I am afraid you must, sir.'

  Chapter Eight

  'He has missed his tide,' said Sir Joseph. 'I have rarely been more vexed.'

  'Soames handled the matter like a fool,' said Stephen. 'If only he had taken it lightly, if only he had started talking about the daily civil lies of "not at home", "humble obedient servant" and so on, had then moved on to the various face-saving formulae of treaties and the like, treating them as the silly unimportant trifles they are, and had then asked Aubrey to put his name to the solicitation, all ready and made out, he might well have signed with a thankful heart, a heart overflowing with happiness.'

  'It is the damnedest thing,' said Sir Joseph, following his own line of thought. 'Even with all the susceptibilities that had to be taken into account—Quinborough and his allies, to name only them—for the moment the balance was just leaning in Aubrey's favour, just leaning far enough for the decisive action. Could not you persuade him to tell Soames that on mature consideration et cetera? After all, like every other sailor he has been brought up to think nothing of cheerful corruption. Vast quantities of stores disappear, dead men and non-existent servants continue to draw
their wages; and to my certain knowledge he has been guilty of at least three false musters, entering his friends' sons on the ship's books in order to gain them sea-time when in fact they are at school on dry land. Why, in a ghostly form his own half-brother was aboard, last time you were in the Pacific.'

  'Cheerful corruption, yes; and if that had been the approach, he might possibly have worn it, as sailors say. But now that it is a high moral issue, with all cheerfulness flown out of the window, I could not possibly shift him; nor should I attempt it.'

  'Well, as I say, it is the damnedest thing. To be so near success and then to . . .'

  After a pause Stephen said hesitantly, 'I suppose there is no possibility of an act of grace, without any formal solicitation?'

  'No. At the moment Aubrey has a good many allies and therefore a great deal of interest, but he has not enough for that. Considerably more would be needed.'

  'This makes no difference?' Stephen pointed to the carefully-written pages in which Pratt reported his discovery of General Aubrey, dead in a ditch near the alehouse in which he had been living under the name of Captain Woolcombe.

  Blaine shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'As far as the Ministry is concerned the General and his Radical friends were quite exploded when they failed to answer their bail—they ceased to exist politically—even the most disreputable opposition newspapers could have nothing to do with them—and the General might just as well have died then as now. And it makes no difference from our point of view either, since Pratt and his colleagues have been through and through the General's papers without finding the least hint of any contact with Wray and Ledward.'

  'Of course not. There can have been no possible connection.'

  'On the other hand,' observed Blaine, 'it might be said that this death does do Aubrey's cause some little good, in that the involuntary Radical link is done away with; but the good is nothing remotely like enough, alas and alas. What do you propose to do now, Maturin?'