Post captain, page 17
‘Come, Jack, come, come,’ said Lady Keith, tugging his arm. ‘Where are your manners? You are behaving like a bear.’
‘Dear Queenie,’ said he, with a great slow smile, ‘forgive me. I am bemused. Your friend Canning wants to make my fortune. He is your friend?’
‘Yes. His father taught me Hebrew - good evening, Miss Sibyl - such a very wealthy young man, so enterprising. He has a vast admiration for you.’
‘That shows a proper candour. Does he speak Hebrew, Queenie?’
‘Oh, just enough for his bar mitzvah, you know. He is about as much of a scholar as you are, Jack. He has many friends in the Prince of Wales’s set, but don’t let that put you off - he is not a flash cove. Come into the gallery.’
‘Bar mitzvah,’ said Jack, in a grave voice, following her into the crowded gallery; and there, momentarily framed by four men in black coats, he saw the familiar red face of Mrs Williams. She was sitting by the fireplace, looking hot and overdressed, and Cecilia sat next to her: for a moment he could not place them in this context; they belonged to another world and time, another reality. There was no empty place beside them, no vacant chair. As Lady Keith led him up to them she murmured something about Sophia; but her discretion swallowed up her meaning.
‘Have you come back to England, Captain Aubrey?’ said Mrs Williams, as he made his leg. ‘Well, well, upon my word.’
‘Where are your other girls?’ asked Lady Keith, glancing about.
‘I was obliged to leave them at home, your ladyship. Frankie has such a feverish cold, and Sophie has stayed to take care of her.’
‘She did not know you would be here,’ whispered Cecilia.
‘Jack,’ said Lady Keith, ‘I believe Lord Melville is throwing out a signal. He wants to speak with you.’
‘The First Lord?’ cried Mrs Williams, half rising in her seat and craning. ‘Where? Where? Which is he?’
‘The gentleman with the star,’ said Lady Keith.
‘Just a word, Aubrey,’ said Lord Melville, ‘and then I must be off. Can you come to see me tomorrow instead of next week? It does not throw you out? Good night to you, then - I am obliged to you, Lady Keith,’ he called, kissing his hand and waving it, ‘your must humble, devoted. .
Jack’s face and eyes, as he turned back to the ladies, had a fine glow, a hint of the rising sun. By the law of social metaphysics some of the great man’s star had rubbed off on him, as well as a little of young Canning’s easy opulence. He felt that he was in command of the situation, of any situation, in spite of the wolves outside the door: his calmness surprised him. What were his feelings beneath this strong bubbling cheerfulness? He could not make it out. So much had happened these last few days - his old cloak still smelt of powder - and indeed was still happening, that he could not make them out. Sometimes you receive a knock in action: it may be your death-wound or just a scratch, a graze - you cannot tell at once. He gave up the attempt and turned his full attention to Mrs Williams, inwardly remarking that the Mrs Williams of Sussex and even of Bath was a different animal from the Mrs Williams in a great London drawing-room; she looked provincial and dowdy; and so, it must be admitted, did Cecilia, with her fussy ornaments and frizzled hair - though indeed she was a good-natured child. Mrs Williams was obscurely aware of this; she looked stupid, uncertain, and almost respectful, though he felt that resentment might not be far away. Having observed how affable Lord Melville was, very much the gentleman, she told Jack that they had read about his escape in the paper: she hoped his return meant
that everything was well with him: but how came he to be in India? She had understood he had withdrawn to the Continent in consequence of some. . . to the Continent.
‘So I did, ma’am. Maturin and I went to France, where that scoundrel Bonaparte very nearly laid us by the heels.’
‘But you came home in an Indiaman. I saw it in the papers - in The Times.’
‘Yes. She touched at Gibraltar.’
‘Ah. I see. So now the mystery is cleared up: I thought I should get to the bottom of it at last.’
‘How is dear Dr Maturin?’ asked Cecilia. ‘I hope to see him.’
‘Yes, how is the worthy Dr Maturin?’ said her mother.
‘He is very well, I thank you. He was in the far room some moments ago, talking to the Physician of the Fleet. What a splendid fellow he is: he nursed me through a most devilish fever I caught in the mountains, and dosed me twice a day until we reached Gibraltar. Nothing else would have brought me home.’
‘Mountains - Spain,’ said Mrs Williams with strong disapproval. ‘You will never get me there, I can tell you.’
‘So you travelled right down through Spain,’ said Cecilia. ‘I dare say it was prodigiously romantic, with ruins, and monks?’
‘There were some ruins and monks, to be sure,’ said Jack, smiling at her. ‘And hermits too. But the most romantic thing I saw was the Rock, rearing up there at the end of our road like a lion. That, and the orange-tree in Stephen’s castle.’
‘A castle in Spain!’ cried Cecilia, clasping her hands.
‘Castle!’ cried Mrs Williams. ‘Nonsense. Captain Aubrey means some cottage with a whimsical name, my love.’
‘No, ma’am. A castle, with towers, battlements, and all that is proper. A marble roof, too. The only whimsical thing about it was the bath, which stood just off a spiral staircase, as bald as an egg: it was marble too, carved out of a single block - amazing. But this orange-tree was in a court with arches all round, a kind of cloister, and it bore oranges, lemons, and tangerines all at the same time! Green fruit, ripe fruit, and flowers, all at the same time and such a scent. There’s romance for you! Not many oranges when I was there, but lemons fresh every day. I must have eaten -’
‘Am I to understand that Dr Maturin is a man of property?’ cried Mrs Williams.
‘Certainly you are, ma’am. A thumping great estate up where we crossed the mountains - merino sheep -,
‘Merino sheep,’ said Mrs Williams, nodding, for she knew the beasts existed - what else could yield merino wool?
‘- but his main place is down towards Lerida. By the way, I have not inquired for Mrs Villiers: how rude of me. I hope she is well?’
‘Yes, yes - she is here,’ - dismissing Diana - ‘But I thought he was only a naval surgeon.’
‘Did you indeed, ma’am? However, he is a man of considerable estate: a physician, too - they think the world of him in-’
‘Then how did he come to be your surgeon?’ she asked, in a sudden last burst of suspicion.
‘What easier way of seeing the world? Airy, commodious, and paid for by the King.’ This was utterly conclusive. Mrs Williams relapsed into silence for some moments. She had heard of castles in Spain, but she could not remember whether they were good or bad: they were certainly one or the other. Probably good, seeing that Lord Melville was so affable. Oh yes, very good - certainly very good.
‘I hope he will call - I hope you will both call,’ she said at last. ‘We are staying with my sister Pratt in George Street. Number eleven.’
Jack was most grateful; unhappily official business - he could not call his time his own - but he was sure Dr Maturin would be delighted; and he begged he might be particularly remembered to Miss Williams and Miss Frances.
‘You may have heard, of course, that my Sophie is - ‘began Mrs Williams, launched upon the precautionary lie, then regretting it and not knowing how to come off handsomely, ‘- that Sophie is, how shall I say - though there is nothing official.’
‘There’s Di,’ whispered Cecilia, poking Jack with her elbow.
She was walking slowly into the gallery between two men, both tall: a dark blue dress, a black velvet band around her throat, splendid white bosom. He had forgotten that her hair was black, black, her neck a column and her eyes mere dark smudges in the distance. His feelings needed no analysis: his heart, which had stopped while he searched for the empty place by Mrs Williams, now beat to quarters: a constellation, a galaxy of erotic notions raced through his mind, together with an unmixed pleasure in looking at her. How well-bred she looked! She did not seem pleased, however; she turned her head from the man on her right with a lift of her chin that he knew only too well.
‘The gentleman she is walking with is Colonel Colpoys, Admiral Haddock’s brother-in-law, from India. Diana is staying with Mrs Colonel Colpoys in Bruton Street. A pokey, inconvenient little house.’
‘How beautiful he is,’ murmured Cecilia.
‘Colonel Colpoys?’ cried Mrs Williams.
‘No, Mama, the gentleman in the blue coat.’
‘Oh, no, my love,’- lowering her voice, speaking behind her hand and staring hard at Canning - ‘that gentleman is a jay ee double-u.’
‘So he is not beautiful, Mama?’
‘Of course not, my dear’ - as to an idiot - ‘I have just told you he is a’ - lowering her voice again - ‘jay ee double-u,’ pursing her lips and nodding her head with great satisfaction.
‘Oh,’ said Cecilia, disappointed. ‘Well, all I can say,’ she muttered to herself, ‘is, I wish I had beaux like that following me around. He has been by her all the evening, almost. Men are always following Di around. There is another one.’
The other one, an army officer, was hurrying through the press with a tall thin glass of champagne, bearing it towards her with both hands as though it were a holy object; but before he could urge a fat, staring woman out of his way, Stephen Maturin appeared. Diana’s face changed at once - a look of straightforward, almost boyish delight -and as he came up she gave him both hands, crying, ‘Oh, Maturin, how very glad I am to see you! Welcome home.’
The soldier, Canning and Jack were watching intently; they saw nothing to give them uneasiness; the delicate pink flush in Diana’s face, reaching her ears, was that of spontaneous open uncomplicated pleasure; Maturin’s unaltered pallor, his somewhat absent expression, matched her directness. Furthermore, he was looking uncommonly plain - rusty, neglected, undarned.
Jack relaxed in his chair: he had got it wrong, he thought, with a warm and lively pleasure in his mistake: he often got things wrong. He had set up for penetration, and he had got it wrong.
‘You are not attending,’ said Cecilia. ‘You are so busy quizzing the gentleman in blue, that you are not attending. Mama says they mean to go and look at the Magdalene. That is what Dr Maturin is pointing at.’
‘Yes? Oh, yes. Certainly. A Guido, I believe?’
‘No, sir,’ said Mrs Williams, who understood these things better than other people. ‘It is an oil painting, a very valuable oil painting, though not quite in the modern taste.’
‘Mama, may I run after Dr Maturin and go with them?’ asked Cecilia.
‘Do, my love, and tell Dr Maturin to come and see me. No, Captain Aubrey, do not get up: you shall tell me about your Spanish journey. There is nothing that interests me more than travel, I declare; and if I had had my health I should have been a great traveller, a second -a second -’ ‘St Paul?’
‘No, no. A second Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Now tell me about Dr Maturin’s establishment.’
Jack could not tell her very much; he had been unwell, delirious at times, and he did not attend to the kind of leases they had in those parts, or the return on capital
- Mrs Williams sighed - had not seen the rent-roll, but supposed the estate was ‘pretty big’ - it took in a good deal of Aragon, as well as Catalonia; it had its drawbacks, however, being sadly infested by porcupines; they were hunted by a pack of pure-bred porcupine-hounds, often by moonlight, the field carrying Cordova-leather umbrellas against the darting of their quills.
‘You gentlemen are always so taken up with your sporting, when a little attention to rack-rents and fines and enclosures - I am enclosing Mapes Common - ah, here comes the dear Doctor.’
Stephen’s face rarely betrayed much emotion, but her effusive welcome made him stretch his eyes: her first question set him right, however, ‘So I hear that you have a marble bath, Dr Maturin? That must be a great comfort to you, in such a climate.’
‘Certainly, ma’am. I conceive it to be Visigothic.’
‘Not marble?’
‘Visigothic marble, my dear madam, from a baptistery destroyed by the Moors.’
‘And you have a castle?’
‘Oh, it is only a small place. I keep one wing in order, to go up there from time to time.’
‘For the porcupine-hunting, no doubt?’
Stephen bowed. ‘And for my rents, ma’am. In some ways Spain is a more direct country than England, and when we say rack-rent in those parts, rack-rent is what we mean - why, we make them pay for the use of the instrument.’
Jack found Diana at the buffet where he had had his conversation with Canning: Canning was no longer with her, but his place had been taken by two more soldiers. She did not give Jack both hands, because one was holding a glass and the other a piece of cake, but her greeting was as gay, cheerful and undisguised as it had been for Stephen:
even warmer, perhaps, for she moved away from the group to talk with him - a hundred quick, attentive inquiries -and she said ‘How we have missed you at Mapes, Aubrey; how I have missed you! A pack of women mewed up together, bottling gooseberries, God help us. There is that odious Mr Dawkins bearing down. We will go and look at Lady Keith’s new picture. Here it is. What do you think of her?’
It was clear that the Magdalene had not yet repented: she was standing on a quay with blue ruins in the background - a blue that swept with varying intensities through her robe to the sea - with gold plates, ewers and basins heaped up on a crimson cloth, and an expression of mild complacency on her face. Her blue dress had blown off - a fresh double-reef topsail breeze - and so had a filmy white garment, exposing handsome limbs and a firm, though opulent bosom. Jack had been a long time at sea, and this drew his attention; however, he shifted his gaze after a moment, surveyed the rest of the picture and sought for something appropriate, perhaps even witty, to say. He longed to produce a subtle and ingenious remark, but he longed in vain - perhaps the day had been too full - and he was obliged to fall back on ‘Very fine - such a blue.’ Then a small vessel in the lower left-hand corner caught his eye, something in the nature of a pink; she was beating up for the harbour, but it was obvious from the direction of the lady’s clothes that the pink would be taken aback the moment she rounded the headland. ‘As soon as she catches the land-breeze she will be in trouble,’ he said. ‘She will never stay, not with those unhandy lateens, and there is no room to wear; so there she is on a lee-shore. Poor fellows. I am afraid there is no hope for them.’
‘That is exactly what Maturin told me you would say,’ cried Diana, squeezing his arm. ‘How well he knows you, Aubrey.’
‘Well, a man don’t have to be a Nostradamus to tell what a sailor will say, when he sees an infernal tub like that laid by the lee. But Stephen is a very deep old file, to be sure,’ he added, his good humour returning. ‘And a great cognoscento, I make no doubt. For my part I know nothing about painting at all.’
‘Nor do I,’ said Diana, staring up at the picture. ‘She seems to be making a very good thing of it,’ - with a chuckle - ‘No lack of admirers. Come, let us see if we can find an ice: I am dying of heat and general distress.’
‘Look at the outré way Diana has dragged up her hair,’ said Mrs Williams as they passed by towards the great drawing-room. ‘It is bound to attract attention. It would do Sophie good, to see her walking about like that, as bold as brass, with poor Captain Aubrey. She has positively taken his arm, I protest.’
‘Tell me,’ said Diana, ‘What are your plans? Are you back for good? Shall we see something of you in Sussex?’
‘I am not sure,’ said Jack. ‘Do you see that man saying good-bye to Lady Keith? But you know him - he was talking to you just now. Canning.’
‘Yes?’
‘He has offered me the command of a - of a letter-of-marque, a private man of war, a thirty-two gun frigate.’
‘Oh, Aubrey, how splendid! A privateer is just the thing for you - Have I said something wrong?’
‘No. No, not at all - good evening, sir: that was Admiral Bridges - No, it was just the word privateer. But as Stephen is always telling me, one must not be the prisoner of words.’
‘Of course not. Besides, what does it signify? It is just like taking service with the native princes in India:
nobody thinks any the less of you and everybody envies the fortune you make. Oh, how well it would suit you -your own master, no fagging up and down to Whitehall, no admirals to make you do tiresome things and snatch great lumps of your prize-money. A perfect idea for a man like you - for a man of spirit. An independent command! A thirty-two gun frigate!’
‘It is a magnificent offer: I am in a maze.’
‘And in partnership with Canning! I am sure you would get on famously. My cousin Jersey knows him. The Cannings are absurdly rich, and he is very like a native prince; only he is straightforward and brave, which they are not, on the whole.’ Her eager face changed, and looking round Jack saw an elderly man standing by him. ‘My dear,’ said the elderly man, ‘Charlotte sends me to tell you she is thinking of going home presently; we have to drop Charles at the Tower before twelve.’
‘I shall come at once,’ said Diana.
‘No, no, you have plenty of time to finish your ice.’
‘Have I, truly? May I introduce Captain Aubrey, of the Navy, Admiral Haddock’s neighbour? Colonel Colpoys, who is so sweetly kind as to have me to stay.’
Very small talk for a moment, and the colonel went away to see to his horses.
‘When shall I see you again? Will you call at Bruton Street tomorrow morning? I shall be alone. You may take me into the park, and to look at the shops.’
‘Diana,’ said Jack in a low voice, ‘there is a writ out against me. I dare not walk about London.’
‘You dare not? You are afraid of being arrested?’ Jack nodded.
‘Afraid? Upon my word, I never expected to hear that from you. What do you think I introduced you for? It was so you might call.’
