The Nutmeg of Consolation

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Only on medicine, sir, and a few aspects of natural philosophy.'

  'And may I ask, sir, whether you can compose at sea, or whether you wait for the peace and calm of a country retreat?'

  'I have written a good deal at sea,' said Stephen, 'but unless the weather is tolerably steady, so that the ink may be relied upon to stay in its well, I usually wait until I am ashore for any long, considered treatise or paper for the peace and calm of a country retreat, as you say. Yet on the other hand I do not find that the turmoil of a ship prevents me reading: with a good clear candle in my lantern and balls of wax in my ears, I read with the utmost delight. The confinement of my cabin, the motion of my hanging cot, the distantly-heard orders and replies, the working of the ship—all these enhance my enjoyment.'

  'I have tried your wax balls,' said Martin, 'but they make me apprehensive. I am afraid that there will be the cry "She sinks, she sinks! All is lost. She cannot swim," and I shall not hear.'

  'You were always rather apprehensive, Nathaniel,' said Paulton, taking off his spectacles and looking at him kindly with his myopic gaze. 'I remember terrifying you as a little boy by asserting that I was really a corpse inhabited by a grey and hairy ghost. But I imagine, sir,'—to Stephen—'that you read books on medicine, natural philosophy, perhaps history—that you do not read novels or plays.'

  'Sir,' said Stephen, 'I read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them—I look upon good novels—as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any other, with greater breadth and depth and fewer constraints. Had I not read Madame de La Fayette, the Abbé Prévost, and the man who wrote Clarissa, that extraordinary feat, I should be very much poorer than I am; and a moment's reflection would add many more.'

  Martin and Paulton instantly added many more; and Paulton, who had hitherto been somewhat shy and nervous, shook Stephen's hand, saying, 'Sir, I honour your judgment. But when you spoke of Clarissa, did the name of Richardson slip your mind?'

  'It did not. I am aware that Samuel Richardson's name appears on the title-page. Yet before ever I read Clarissa Harlowe I read Grandison, to which is appended a low grasping ignoble whining outcry against the Irish booksellers for invading the copyright. It is written by a tradesman in the true spirit of the counting-house; and since there can be no doubt that it was written by Richardson, I for my part have no doubt that Clarissa, with its wonderful delicacy, was written by another hand. The man who wrote the letter could not have written the book. Richardson as of course you know was intimately acquainted with the other printers and booksellers of his time; and it is my conviction that some one of their dependents, a man of singular genius, wrote the book, perhaps in the Fleet, perhaps in the Marshalsea.'

  They both nodded their heads: they had both lodged in Grub Street. 'After all,' said Martin, 'statesmen do not write their own speeches.'

  After a rather solemn pause Paulton called for more tea, and while they were drinking it their talk ran on about the novel, the process of writing a novel, the lively fruitful fluent pen and its sudden inexplicable sterility. 'I was sure, last time I was in Sydney,' said Paulton, 'that I should finish my fourth volume as soon as I was back at Woolloo-Woolloo—for my cousin and I take turns at overseeing the overseer, you know—but the weeks went by, and never a word that I did not strike out next morning.'

  'The country did not suit, I collect?'

  'No, sir. Not at all. Yet I had set great store by it when I was in London, distracted by a hundred trifles and by daily cares, with hardly two hours I could call my own until late in the evening, when I was good for nothing; and it seemed to me that nowhere could country peace and quiet reach a higher point than in New South Wales, a remote settlement in New South Wales, with no post, no newspapers, no untimely visitors.'

  'But is not this the case at Woolloo-Woolloo?'

  'There are no letters, no papers, no visitors, to be sure; but there is no country either. No country as I had conceived it and as I believe most people conceive it—nothing that one could call rural. Imagine riding from Sydney over a dun-coloured plain: shallow stony soil with coarse rank grass, deep bush, and here and there some melancholy trees. I never knew a tree could be ugly until I saw a blue-gum: others of the same kind too, with dull, leathery, discouraged leaves and their bark hanging down in great strips, a vegetable leprosy. You leave what settlements there are, what sheep-walks, and the track grows narrower, entering the bush, a grey-green sombre dusty vegetation, never fresh and green, with vast stretches that have been burnt black and bald by the Aborigines. And I should have stated that it was always the same: these trees never lose their leaves, but they never seem to have new ones either. On and on, skirting several dismal lagoons, where the mosquitoes are even worse, and then at last you climb a slope through lower scrub and there you see a river before you, sometimes a continuous stream, more often pools here and there in the valley. Beyond it stands Woolloo-Woolloo, a stark house set down in the wilderness; to the left the stockade where the convicts live, with the overseer's house beside it; and far inland you can just make out Wilkins' place, the only neighbour within reach. It is true that the convicts have cleared the farther bank for wheat, but it is nothing like a field, only a kind of industrial scar; and in any case it hardly affects the huge featureless expanse of colourless monotonous inhuman primeval waste that stretches away and away before you and on your left hand. The river has a long Aboriginal name: I call it the Styx.'

  'That is a sad approach to a country retreat,' said Stephen. 'And the Styx has dismal associations.'

  'None too dismal for Woolloo-Woolloo, sir, I do assure you. Indeed they are scarcely dismal enough. In Hades there was no triangle permanently installed as there is in the square at Woolloo-Woolloo and Wilkins' place; for though no man can flog his own assigned servants, both my cousin and Wilkins are magistrates, and each can do so for the other. And in Hades there was at least some company, however faded, some conversation: at Woolloo-Woolloo there is none. The overseer is a gross man, with no thoughts apart from the profit of the land, the acres of bush to be cleared, the harvest that Stanley's brig is to take down to Sydney; and he says I must not talk to the convicts except to give them orders. And although the black men I sometimes meet on our beach or walking by the stream are affable enough—one gave me a piece of ochre, and they have quite often painted my arms and face with the oil that exudes from dead fishes, to keep the mosquitoes away: they use it all over their bodies—our exchange is limited to a few score words. So, do you see, I have no conversation. My rural retreat is not unlike Bentham's solitary confinement: and although no doubt there are men who can bring a novel to a splendid resounding close in solitary confinement, I am not one of them. Though Heaven knows I am sadly in need of an end.'

  'You paint a sombre picture of New Holland, sir. Are there no compensations, no birds, beasts and flowers?'

  'I am told that ours is an exceptionally unfavoured part of the country, sir, with little game and that little poached by a band of escaped convicts who have somehow contrived to make friends with Aborigines living beyond our northern bush. Little game . . . I have, it is true, been told that emus were crossing our path, but I never saw them; nor, being so shortsighted, have I seen the cockatoos and parrots except as a vague blur. Indeed, Nature's beauties are wasted on me, though her shortcomings are not—I hear the dreadfully raucous voices of the birds, and I feel the innumerable mosquitoes that plague us, particularly after the rains.'

  'As for an end,' said Martin, 'are endings really so very important? Sterne did quite well without one; and often an unfinished picture is all the more interesting for the bare canvas. I remember Bourville's definition of a novel as a work in which life flows in abundance, swirling without a pause: or as you might say without an end, an organized end. And there is at least one Mozart quartet that stops without the slightest ceremony: most satisfying when you get used to it.'

  Steph
en said 'There is another Frenchman whose name escapes me but who is even more to the point: La bêtise c'est de vouloir conclure. The conventional ending, with virtue rewarded and loose ends tied up is often sadly chilling; and its platitude and falsity tend to infect what has gone before, however excellent. Many books would be far better without their last chapter: or at least with no more than a brief, cool, unemotional statement of the outcome.'

  'Do you really think so?' asked Paulton, looking from one to the other. 'I am very willing to believe you, particularly as the tale has reached a point where . . . Nathaniel, may I beg you to read it? If it really will do without any beating of drums, or if you could suggest the first notes of the true closing passage, how happy I should be! I could escape from this cruel, desolate, corrupt and corrupting place.'

  'I should like to read it very much,' said Martin. 'I have always liked your pieces.'

  'The manuscript—you know my wretched scrawl, Nathaniel—is now being fine-copied by a Government clerk. Corruption has its uses, though I cry out against it.'

  'Is he not allowed to copy, then?'

  'Certainly not to the extent he is copying for me. He is the best pen in the colony, always employed for Government grants and leases, but until my manuscript is done not a single one will he presented for the seal. He was a forger in real life, and when he is sober he can make you the most convincing Bank of England note imaginable, if only the paper is right.'

  'Is there a great deal of corruption in the colony?'

  'Apart from the present Governor and the officers who came out with him, I should say that in one form or another it is almost universal. In the lower branches of the administration for example nearly all the clerks are convicts, often quite highly-educated men; and so long as you are reasonably discreet they will do anything you wish.'

  'Ah,' said Stephen with some satisfaction. 'I asked because several of our people in the Surprise have friends who were transported. I waited on the penal secretary to enquire after them, but it was clear that he did not intend to give me any information; and although Captain Aubrey with his much greater authority could probably oblige him to do so, I fear the intervention might rebound upon the prisoners.'

  'With such a fellow as Firkins I am sure it would. The simple, quite harmless way is to apply to one of the clerks who keep the register. Painter would be the best, a quick, intelligent man. He has had two or three shepherds and some real farm labourers, ploughmen, put in the place of others and assigned to us—rare birds in a population mostly made up of more or less sinful townsmen, and highly valued.'

  'How can he be approached?'

  'As he is a ticket-of-leave man, it is not difficult. A word left at Riley's hotel would bring him to a discreet meeting-place. It might be wiser for you not to go yourself, however; there are so many informers about, and your encounter with Lowe has set the whole Camden faction so very much against you, that it might have some ill effect. If you have nobody suitable aboard, I will go myself.'

  'You are very kind, sir, very kind indeed, but I think I have the right man. If I am mistaken, may I come and see you again? I should like to do so in any case, whenever you are at leisure.'

  'One of the many things I like about your friend,' said Stephen, peering out over the dark waters of Sydney Cove, 'is that he is not holier than thou, or at least than me. Although he is clearly a virtuous man he is not horrified by moderate sin. Can you make out where the landing-place is? I shall try a hail. The boat, ahoy! Halloo! Show a glim there, you wicked dogs.'

  'If we keep steadily down, as near the shore as possible, I think we must come to it in time; but I wish we had not resisted Paulton's offer of accompanying us with a lantern.'

  The theory was sound, but the night being singularly thick—no stars, still less any hint of a moon—their practice was slow, hesitant and anxious until they were overtaken by a cheerful, reasonably sober body of the frigate's liberty men, carrying links.

  'There she lays, sir,' they cried. 'Right up against the wharf, warped in this last tide. Didn't you recognize her, sir? The Doctor did not recognize the barky.' The news passed back and a distant voice said 'Both the doctors are so pissed they did not recognize the barky, ha, ha, ha!'

  'To think that I should not recognize my own ship,' thought Stephen, standing there on the gangway; and then with a slight twinge of regret he remembered that the Surprise was not his own ship. 'But what of it, for all love?' he reflected. 'The kinds of happiness are not to be compared,' and walking into the cabin he stood for a moment, blinking in the light.

  Jack, at his desk with several heaps of papers before him, did not look particularly happy, but he raised his head, smiled, and said 'There you are, Stephen.'

  'You have a worn and aged look, brother,' said Stephen. 'Put out your tongue.' He examined it and said 'You are not yet recovered from your plethory.'

  'It is a plethory of bloody-minded officials that I am suffering from,' said Jack. 'Obstruction at every goddam turn. No one knows when Governor Macquarie will be back and most unhappily his deputy served under my father. Where I should be without Adams I cannot tell; but he can only deal with the smaller repairs and shortages, and I want much more than that—want it with the utmost dispatch, as my orders say.'

  'Adams was wonderfully successful in Java,' observed Stephen, 'and with your permission I should like to ask him to carry out some corruption for me too, at a modest level. We went to see a friend of Martin's, an amiable man who has lived here for some time, and he assured me that there is a universal venality among the Government clerks. He told me the name of one to whom we should apply for news of Padeen and the men and women in the lists I gave you; and it appears to me that Adams is the man to make the application.'

  Adams, consulted after breakfast the next day, was of the same opinion. 'With all modesty, sir,' said he, 'I do not think there is any class of men in the service better suited for making a friendly arrangement or mutual accommodation as one might say than the older captain's clerks. They have seen all the colours of the rainbow, they do not have to top it the nob, and they are not easily done even a very light brown. How much were you thinking of giving for these men's whereabouts, sir? Their places of assignment, as the regulations call it.'

  'There, Mr Adams, you fairly pose me. Would a johannes do?'

  'God bless you, sir, a joe passes for £4 here. No. From what I have seen I should say a gallon of rum or what they call rum poor souls would be about the going price. We do not want to spoil the market, flashing gold about.'

  'I am sure you are right, Mr Adams. But on the other hand pray be so open-handed that Painter does not spare his time in getting information about Colman. He was loblolly-boy, as I think I told you, and I take a particular interest in him.'

  'Very well, Doctor. I shall do my best. May I go beyond two gallon if a good deal of trouble is required, if Painter has to call in other clerks, for example?'

  'Certainly. Drown him in rum if need be; but first I must fetch you some money for it, and a broad piece or two in case of need; for I do assure you, Mr Adams, that I should not grudge a hatful of broad pieces in this case.'

  On the half-deck he met Reade and he said 'Oh Mr Reade, my dear, tell me, is Bonden away with the Captain?'

  'No, sir,' said Reade. 'He is helping Jemmy Ducks make Sarah's clothes. Shall I fetch him?'

  'Never in life,' said Stephen. 'I should like to see how they are coming along.'

  They were coming along pretty well. Bonden was the best hand at sewing in the ship, and with his mouth full of pins he was trying a roughed-out nankeen frock, fit for Government House, on a rigid, stock-still Sarah, while Jemmy Ducks, his superior in deportment and worldly knowledge, was teaching Emily to curtsy. 'Do not mind me,' he said as he entered their dim retreat. 'Carry on by all means. But Bonden, when you are free I should like a hand in the Captain's store-room.'

  'Aye aye, sir,' said Bonden indistinctly; and the little girls gave him a wan, apprehensive smile.

&n
bsp; The Captain's store-room had a wealth of those geometrically impossible corners so usual at sea, and in one of these, guarded by a massive iron-bound chest made fast to eye-bolts lay Stephen's tangible wealth, a certain amount of gold, much more silver, and some Bank of England notes, in a smaller chest, also iron-bound, also provided with locks, but also made of wood; and as he stood there waiting for Bonden it occurred to him for the first time that the rats, in their frenzy of deprivation, might have pierced this box too.

  'They will have spared the gold and silver, I dare say,' he reflected. 'But a poor simple creature I shall look if I open the inner drawer and find a comfortable nest of paper chewed small with little pink sucklings in it. This happened at Ballynahinch, as I well remember; but that was only laundry lists.'

  'Now, sir,' said Bonden, 'if you will lay aft just a trifle, I'll cast off—no, sir: aft, if you please.'

  All was well. The rats had scorned the treasure-chest, and by some happy atmospheric chance the elegant Bank of England notes, 'the only paper money that looks worth twopence', he thought, had retained or regained their pristine crispness. He was counting it with a certain voluptuous glee (the ghost of former poverty) when Oakes came below to say that 'there was a gentleman for him on the quarterdeck, if you please, sir.'

  'A civilian or a soldier, Mr Oakes?'

  'Oh, only a civilian, sir.'

  It was Mr Paulton, come to return their visit. Stephen took him into the cabin, sent to tell Martin, and they all three sat drinking madeira until Jack returned, worn, dusty, and very willing to eat his dinner. He at once invited Paulton. 'We keep strangely unfashionable hours in the Navy, sir, but I should be very happy if you would honour us.'

  'Pray do,' said Stephen. 'It being Friday we have laid in a noble haul of fish.'

  'They have asked the shabby gent,' said Killick to his mate. 'Go and tell the cook.'