Desolation Island, Page 2

  'I dare say she could,' said Jack. 'And if she could make him happy again by doing so, I should bless the day. There was a time, you know,' he went on, staring out of the window, 'when I thought it was my duty as a friend—when I thought I was doing the right thing by him to keep them apart. I thought that she was just plain wicked—devilish—wholly destructive—and that she would be the end of him. But now I don't know: perhaps you should never interfere in such things: too delicate. Yet if you see a fellow walking blindfold into a pit . . . I acted for the best, according to my lights; but it may be that my lights were not of the very brightest kind.'

  'I am sure you were right,' said Sophie, touching his shoulder to comfort him. 'After all, she had shown herself to be—well, to be, what shall I say?—a light woman.'

  'Why, as to that,' said Jack, 'the older I grow, the less I think of capers of that kind. People differ so, even if they are women. There may be women for whom these things are much as they might be for a man—women for whom going to bed to a man doesn't necessarily signify, don't affect them in the essence, as I might say, and don't make whores of 'em. I beg your pardon, my dear, for using such a word.'

  'Do you mean,' asked his wife, taking no notice of his last remark, 'that there are men to whom breaking the commandment does not signify?'

  'I am got on to dangerous ground, I find,' said Jack 'What I mean is . . . I know very well what I mean, but I am not clever at putting it into words. Stephen could explain it far better—could make it clear.'

  'I hope that neither Stephen nor any other man could make it clear to me that breaking marriage vows did not signify.'

  At this juncture a terrible animal appeared among the builders' rubble, a low dull-blue creature that might have been a pony if it had had any ears; it earned a small man on its back and a large square box. 'Here is the hairdresser,' cried Jack. 'He is hellfire—he is extremely late. Your mother will have to be frizzed after the consultation: the doctors are due in ten minutes, and Sir James is as regular as a clock.'

  'The house on fire would not induce Mama to appear with her head undressed,' said Sophie. 'They will have to be shown the garden; and in any case Stephen will certainly be late.'

  'She could put on a cap,' said Jack.

  'Of course she will put on a cap,' said Sophie, with a pitying look. 'How could she possibly receive strange gentlemen without a cap? But her hair must be dressed under it.'

  The consultation for which these gentlemen were converging upon Ashgrove Cottage had to do with Mrs Williams's health. At an earlier period she had undergone an operation for the removal of a benign tumour with a fortitude that astonished Dr Maturin, accustomed though he was to the uncomplaining courage of his seamen; but since then her spirits had been much oppressed by vapours, and it was hoped that the high authority of these eminent physicians would persuade her to take the waters at Bath, at Matlock Wells, or even farther north.

  Sir James had travelled in Dr Lettsome's chariot: they arrived together, and together they absolutely declined Captain Aubrey's suggestion of viewing the garden; so Jack, called away to receive the horse-coper and his new filly, left them with the decanter.

  The physicians had taken note of the new wings being added to Ashgrove Cottage, of the double coach-house, the long line of stables, the gleaming observatory-dome on its tower at a distance: now their practised eyes assessed the evident wealth of the morning-room, its new and massive furniture, the pictures of ships and naval engagements by Pocock and other eminent hands, of Captain Aubrey himself by Beechey in the full-dress uniform of a senior post-captain, with the red ribbon of the Bath across his broad chest, looking cheerfully at a bursting mortarshell in which were to be seen the Aubrey arms with the honourable augmentation of two Moors' heads, proper—Jack had recently added Mauritius and La Réunion to his grateful sovereign's crown, and although the Heralds' College had but a hazy notion of these possessions, they had felt that Moors would suit the case. The physicians looked about them as they sipped their wine, and with a visible satisfaction they gauged their fees.

  'Allow me to pour you another glass, my dear colleague,' said Sir James.

  'You are very good,' said Dr Lettsome. 'It really is a most capital Madeira. The Captain has been fortunate in the article of prize-money, I believe?'

  'They tell me that he recaptured two or three of our Indiamen at La Réunion.'

  'Where is La Réunion?'

  'Why, it is what they used to call the Ile Bourbon—in the neighbourhood of the Mauritius, you know.'

  'Ah? Indeed?' said Dr Lettsome; and they turned to the subject of their patient. The tonic effects of steel commended; the surprising side-effects of colchicum, when exhibited in heroic doses; valerian quite exploded; the great value of a pregnancy in these and indeed in almost all other cases; leeches behind the ears always worth a trial; lenitives considered, and their effect upon the spleen; hop-pillows; cold-sponging, with a pint of water on an empty stomach; low diet, black draughts; and Dr Lettsome mentioned his success with opium in certain not dissimilar cases. 'The poppy,' he said, 'can make a rose of a termagant.' He was pleased with his expression: in a louder, rounder voice he said, 'Of a termagant, the poppy can make a rose.' But Sir James's face clouded over, and he replied, 'Your poppy is very well, in its proper place; but when I consider its abuse, the danger of habituation, the risk of the patient's becoming a mere slave, I am sometimes inclined to think that its proper place is the garden plot. I know a very able man who did so abuse it, in the form of the tincture of laudanum, that he accustomed himself to a dose of no less than eighteen thousand drops a day—a decanter half the size of this. He broke himself of the habit; but in a recent crisis of his affairs he had recourse to his balm once more, and although he was never as who should say opium-drunk, I am credibly informed that he was not sober either, not for a fortnight on cud, and that—Oh, Dr Maturin, how do you do?' he cried as the door opened. 'You know our colleague Lettsome, I believe?'

  'Your servant, gentlemen,' said Stephen. 'I trust you have not been waiting on me?'

  Not at all, they said; their patient was not yet ready for them; might they tempt Dr Maturin to a glass of this capital Madeira? They might, said Dr Maturin, and as he drank he observed that it was shocking how corpses had risen: he had been cheapening one that very morning, and the villains had had the face to ask him four guineas—the London price for a provincial cadaver! He had represented to them that their greed must stifle science, and with it their own trade, but in vain: four guineas he had had to pay. In fact he was quite pleased with it: one of the few female corpses he had seen with that curious quasi-calcification of the palmar aponeuroses—fresh, too—but since it was only the hands that interested him at the moment, would either of his colleagues choose to go snacks?

  'I am always happy to have a good fresh liver for my young men,' said Sir James. 'We will stuff it into the boot.' With this he rose, for the door had opened, and Mrs Williams came in, together with a strong smell of singed hair.

  The consultation ran its weary course, and Stephen, sitting a little apart, felt that the grave attentive physicians were earning their fee, however exorbitant it might prove. They both had a natural gift for the histrionic side of medicine, which he did not possess to any degree: he also wondered at the skill with which they managed the lady's flow. He wondered, too, that Mrs Williams should tell such lies, he being in the room: 'she was a homeless widow, and since her son-in-law's degradation she had been unwilling to appear in public.' She was not homeless. The mortgage on Mapes, her large and spreading house, had been paid off with the spoils of Mauritius; but she preferred letting it. Her son-in-law, when in command of a squadron in the Indian Ocean, had held the temporary post of commodore, and as soon as the campaign was over, as soon as the squadron was dispersed, he had in the natural course of events reverted to the rank of captain: there was no degradation. This had been explained to Mrs Williams time and again; she had certainly understood the simple facts; and it was no doubt
a measure of the strong, stupid, domineering woman's craving for pity, if not approval, that she could now bring it all out again in his presence, knowing that he knew the falsity of her words.

  Yet in time even Mrs Williams's voice grew hoarse and Sir James's manner more authoritative; the imminence of dinner became unmistakable; Sophie popped in and out; and at last the consultation came to an end.

  Stephen went out to fetch Jack from the stables, and they met half way, among the steaming heaps of lime. 'Stephen! How very glad I am to see you,' cried Jack, clapping both hands on Stephen's shoulders and looking down into his face with great affection. 'How do you do?'

  'We have brought it off,' said Stephen. 'Sir James is absolute: Scarborough, or we cannot answer for the consequences; and the patient is to travel under the care of an attendant belonging to Dr Lettsome.'

  'Well, I am happy the old lady is to be looked after so well,' said Jack, chuckling. 'Come and look at my latest purchase.'

  'She is a fine creature, to be sure,' said Stephen, as they watched the filly being led up and down. A fine creature, perhaps a shine too fine, even flashy; slightly ewe-hocked; and surely that want of barrel would denote a lack of bottom? An evil-tempered ear and eye. 'Will I get on her back?' he asked.

  'There will never be time,' said Jack, looking at his watch. 'The dinner-bell will go directly. But—' casting an admiring backward eye as he hurried Stephen away—'is she not a magnificent animal? Just made to win the Oaks.'

  'I am no great judge of horseflesh,' said Stephen, 'yet I do beg, Jack, that you will not lay money on the creature till you have watched her six months and more.'

  'Bless you,' said Jack, 'I shall be at sea long before that, and so will you, I hope, if your occasions allow it—we must run like hares—I have great news—will tell you the moment the medicoes are away.' The hares blundered on, gasping. Jack cried, 'Your dunnage is in your old room, of course,' and plunged up the stairs to shift his coat, reappearing to wave his guests to the dining-table as the clock struck the first stroke of the hour.

  'One of the many things I like about the Navy,' said Sir James, half way through the first remove, 'is that it teaches a proper respect for time. With sailors a man always knows when he is going to sit down to table; and his digestive organs are grateful for this punctuality.'

  'I could wish a man also knew when he was going to rise from table,' observed Jack within, some two hours later, when Sir James's organs were still showing gratitude to the port and walnuts. He was boiling with impatience to tell Stephen of his new command, to engage him, if possible, to sail with him once more on this voyage, to admit him to the secret of becoming enormously rich, and to hear what his friend might have to say about his own affairs—not those which had filled his recent absence, for there Stephen was no more loquacious than the quieter sort of tomb, but those which were connected with Diana Villiers and the letters that had so lately been carried up to his room. Yet aloud he said, 'Come, Stephen, this will never do. The bottle is at a stand.' Although Jack's voice was loud and clear, Stephen did not move until the words were repeated, when he started from his reflections, gazed about, and pushed the decanter on: the two physicians looked at him attentively, their heads on one side. Jack's more familiar eye could not make out any marked change: Stephen was pale and withdrawn, but not much more so than usual; perhaps a little dreamier; yet even so Jack was heartily glad when the doctors excused themselves from taking tea, called for their footman, were led into the coach-house by Stephen for a grisly interval with a saw, bundled a shrouded object into the back of the chariot (it had carried many another—the footman and the horses were old hands in the resurrection line), reappeared, pocketed their fees, took their leave, and rolled away.

  Sophie was alone in the drawing-room with the tea-urn and the coffee-pot when at last Jack and Stephen joined her. 'Have you told Stephen about the ship?' she asked.

  'Not yet, sweetheart,' said Jack, 'but am on the very point of doing so. Do you remember the Leopard, Stephen?'

  'The horrible old Leopard?'

  'What a fellow you are, to be sure. First you crab my new filly, the finest prospect for the Oaks I have ever seen—and let me tell you, old Stephen, with all due modesty, that I am the best judge of a horse in the Navy.'

  'I make no doubt of it, my dear: I have seen several naval horses, ha, ha. For horses they must be called, since they generally have the best part of four legs, and no other member of the animal kingdom can call them kin.' Stephen relished his own wit, and for some little time he uttered the creaking sound that was his nearest approach to laughter, and said, 'The Oaks, forsooth!'

  'Well,' said Jack, 'and now you say "the horrible old Leopard". To be sure, she was something of a slug, and a ramshackle old slug, when Tom Andrews had her. But the Dockyard has taken her in hand—a most thoroughgoing overhaul—Snodgrass's diagonal braces—new spirketting—Roberts's iron-plate knees throughout—I spare you the details—and now she is the finest fifty-gun ship afloat, not excepting Grampus. Certainly the finest fourth-rate in the service!' The finest fourth-rate in the service: perhaps. But as Jack knew very well, the fourth-rates were a poor and declining class; they had been excluded from the line of battle this last half-century and more; the Leopard had never been a shining example of them at any time. Jack knew her faults as well as any man; he knew that she was laid down and half built in 1776; that she had remained in that unsatifactory state, quietly rotting in the open, for ten years or so; and that she had then been taken to Sheerness, where they eventually launched her on her undistinguished career in 1790. But he had watched her overhaul with a very attentive, professional eye, and although he knew she would never be an outstanding performer he was sure she was seaworthy: and above all he wanted her not for herself but for her destination: he longed for unknown seas, and the Spice Islands.

  'The Leopard had quite a number of decks, as I recall,' said Stephen.

  'Why, yes: she is a fourth-rate, so she is a two-decker—roomy, almost as roomy as a ship of the line. You will have all the room in the world, Stephen; it will not be like being crammed up tight in a frigate. I must say that the Admiralty has done the handsome thing by me, for once.'

  'I think you should have had a first-rate,' said Sophie. 'And a peerage.'

  Jack gave her a very loving smile and went on, 'They offered me the choice between Ajax, a new seventy-four on the stocks, or the Leopard. The seventy-four will be a very fine ship, as good a seventy-four as you could wish; but she would mean the Mediterranean, under Harte; and there's no distinction in the Mediterranean nowadays. Nor no fortune, either.' Here again Jack was a little devious, for although it was quite true that at this stage of the war there was little for a sailor in the Mediterranean the presence of Admiral Harte had more importance than he chose to explain. In former days Jack had cuckolded the Admiral, an unscrupulous, revengeful man who would not hesitate to break him if he could. During his naval career, Jack had made a great many friends in the service, but he had also made a surprising number of enemies for so amiable a man: some had been jealous of his success; some (and these were his seniors) had found him too independent, even insubordinate in his youth; some disliked his politics (he hated a Whig); and some had the same grudge as Admiral Harte, or fancied they did.

  'You have all the distinction a man could wish, Jack,' said Sophie. 'Such dreadful wounds: and quite enough money.'

  'If Nelson had been of your mind, sweetheart, he would have cried quits after St Vincent. We should have had no Nile, and where would Jack Aubrey have been then? A mere lieutenant to the end of his days. No, no: a man can't have enough distinction in his line of service. And I don't know he can ever have enough money either, if it comes to that. But, however, Leopard is bound for the East Indies—not that there is likely to be much fighting there,' he added with a glance at Sophie, 'and the charming point about it is that a curious situation has arisen at Botany Bay. Leopard is to go south about, deal with the state of affairs in those parts, a
nd then join Admiral Drury somewhere in the neighbourhood of Penang, making observations on her way. Think of the opportunities, Stephen—thousands of miles of almost unknown sea and coastline—wombats on shore for those that like them, because although this is not one of your leisurely exploring voyages, I am sure there would be time for a wombat or a kangaroo, when some important anchorage is to be surveyed—islands never seen, for sure, and their positions to be laid down—and in about a hundred and fifty east, twenty south, we should be in the full path of the eclipse, if only our times coincide—think of the birds, Stephen, think of the beetles and cassowaries, to say nothing of the Tasmanian Devil! There has not been such an opportunity for a philosophical chap since the days of Cook and Sir Joseph Banks.'

  'It sounds the sweetest voyage,' said Stephen, 'and I have always longed to see New Holland. Such a fauna—monotremes, marsupials . . . But tell me, what is this curious situation to which you advert—what is the state of affairs at Botany Bay?'

  'You remember Breadfruit Bligh?'

  'I do not.'

  'Of course you do, Stephen. Bligh, that was sent to Tahiti in the Bounty before the war, to collect breadfruit-trees for the West Indies.'

  'Yes, yes! He had an excellent botanist with him, David Nelson: a most promising young man, alas. I was looking into his work on the bromeliads only the other day.'

  'Then you will remember that his people mutinied on him, and took his ship away?'

  'Sure, I have some hazy recollection of it. They preferred the charms of the Tahitian women to their duty. He survived, did he not?'

  'Yes, but only because he was a most prodigious seaman. They turned him adrift with precious little food in a six-oared boat, loaded to the gunwales with nineteen men, and he navigated her close on four thousand miles to Timor. A most astonishing feat! But perhaps he is not quite so lucky with his subordinates: some time ago he was made Governor of New South Wales and the news is that his officers have mutinied on him again—they have deposed him and shut him up. Army people for the most part, I believe. The Admiralty don't like it, as you may imagine, and they are sending out an officer of sufficient seniority to deal with the situation and set Bligh up again or bring him home, according to his judgement.'