The Letter of Marque, page 24
'Cousin Edward,' he cried, hurrying forward. 'How very good of you to come.'
'I am so sorry to be late, Jack,' said Mr Norton, shaking his hand and looking into his face with grave concern, 'but my fool of a coachman overturned me the other side of Barton and it was a great while before I could get along.'
'I am afraid you were much shaken, sir,' said Jack. He called out 'Ladies, pray be seated without ceremony. Gentlemen, I beg you will sit down.' He led Mr Norton to a chair, poured him a glass of wine, and the meal began at last.
A long meal, and tedious, with all the awkwardness inherent in such occasions; but it did have an end in time, and upon the whole it went off very much better than Jack had feared. When he had seen the last of his guests into their carriages he returned to the small drawing-room, where he found Cousin Edward dozing in his wing-chair, one of the few old pieces of furniture that had escaped the modernization of Woolcombe House. He tiptoed out, and in the passage he came upon Philip, who asked 'Should I not say good-bye to Cousin Edward?'
'No. He will be staying the night: his coach was overset the other side of Barton and broke a wheel. Besides, he was much shaken. He is very old.'
'Older than my father - our father - was, I dare say, sir?'
'Oh, much older. He and my grandfather were contemporaries.'
'What are contemporaries?'
'People of the same age: but it usually means people you knew when you were young together - school friends and so on. At least that is what I mean. Cousin Edward and my grandfather were contemporaries, and they were great friends. They had a pack of hounds together when they were young fellows. They hunted the hare.'
'Have you many contemporaries, sir?'
'No. Not by land. There was almost no one here of my age whom I knew well apart from Harry Charnock. I went away to sea so early, hardly much older than you.'
'But you do feel at home here, sir, do you not?' asked the boy with a curious anxiety and even distress. 'You do feel that this is a place you cannot be turned out of?'
'Yes,' said Jack, not only to please him. 'And now I am going to look at the vine-house and the walled garden. I used to play fives, left hand against right, on the back of it when I was a boy. Yet now I come to reflect, since we are brothers, you should probably call me Jack, although I am so much older.'
Philip said 'Yes,' and blushed, but spoke no more until they came to the vine-house, disused now as it had been in Jack's day, where he showed him a frog, said to be tame, in the stone bath that perpetually overflowed, still with the same musical drip. The walled kitchen-garden was even more unchanged, if possible; the same exact rows of vegetables, bean-poles, gooseberry-bushes, currants, the same cucumber and melon frames, so vulnerable to a flying ball, and the same smelly box-hedges, while on the red-brick walls themselves apricots and peaches were changing colour. Indeed the whole back of the house, stable-yard, laundry, coach-house, all the unimproved part was infinitely familiar, reaching back to the first things Jack had ever known, as familiar as cock-crow, so that at moments he might have been far younger than the little boy running about in his incongruous black suit.
By the time they went in, bats were mixing with the swallows that skimmed over the horse-pond, and Mr Norton had already gone to bed. Jack did not see him again until well on in the next morning.
The Dorchester attorney had just taken his leave, carrying off his bag of legal papers, when Cousin Edward appeared. 'Good morning to you, Jack," he said. 'You have had a long session of it, I fear. I saw Withers arrive as I was shaving. I hope that does not mean disputes or wrangling?'
'No, sir, it all ended happy,' said Jack, 'though there were many details to be sorted out.' Most of the delay had in fact been caused by his step-mother's extreme unwillingness to reveal the fact that she could not sign her name, but that was not a point Jack chose to raise. He said 'Shall we have a pot of coffee in the morning-room?'
'I can no longer find my way about this house,' said Mr Norton as they walked in. 'Apart from my bedroom and the library, everything has been changed since I was here last: even the staircase.'
'Yes. But I intend to put at least the hall back as it was,' said Jack, 'and my mother's rooms. I found nearly all the old panelling heaped up in the barn behind the rick-yard.'
'Do you mean to live here?"
'I don't know. That depends on Sophie. Our place in Hampshire is mighty inconvenient, but she has known it all her married life, and she has many friends there. But in any case I should like Woolcombe to look more or less as it did when I was a boy. My step-mother does not wish to stay here: it is much too big for her and she would be lonely. She thinks of settling in Bath, where she has relatives."
'Well, I am glad you are going to keep at least one foot in the county,' said Cousin Edward with a significant look; and when the coffee came he said, 'Jack, I am happy to have you alone like this." There was a pause, and when he went on his tone was quite different, as though he were reciting words he had composed earlier with some care, perhaps changing them from time to time; it was also evident that he was nervous. 'I dare say you was surprised to see me yesterday,' he said. 'I know Caroline was, and Harry Charnock, as well as some others; and ordinarily speaking I should not have come.' Another pause. 'I do not mean to blackguard your father, Jack, though you know very well how he treated me.' Jack inclined his head in a gesture that might have meant anything. 'But my reason for coming was partly to do what was right by the family - after all, your grandfather and I were the closest of friends, and I loved your mother dearly - yet even more to mark my sense of what was due to you for your splendid feat at St Martin's and even more for the damnable injustice you met with in London.'
The door opened and Philip burst in. On seeing Cousin Edward he stopped, then came forward with a hesitant step. 'Good morning, sir,' he said, reddening; and then, 'Brother Jack, the chaise is come for me. I have said goodbye to Mama.'
'I will come and see you off,' said Jack. And in the hall he said 'Here's a guinea for thee.'
'Oh thank you very much, sir. But would it be very rude were I to say I had rather have something of yours - a pencil-end or an old handkerchief or a piece of paper with your name wrote on it - to show the fellows at school?"
Jack felt in his waistcoat-pocket. 'I tell you what,' he said, 'you can show them this. It is the pistol-ball Dr Maturin took out of my back at St Martin's.' He lifted the boy into the post-chaise and said 'Next holidays, if your Mama can spare you, you must come to Hampshire and meet your nephew and nieces. Some of them are older than you, ha, ha, ha!"
They waved until the chaise turned the corner, and then Jack walked back into the morning-room. The embarrassment had dissipated, and Cousin Edward asked quite easily, 'Shall you be staying some time? I hope so, if only for the sake of your wounds."
'Oh, as for them, they were troublesome for a while, but I heal as quick as a young dog and now the stitches are out I scarcely think of them. No: as soon as I have made my round of thanks in the village and at the cottages, I am away. Surprise is fitting foreign, and there are a thousand things to attend to, as well as the repairs. My surgeon is quite satisfied, so long as I travel by chaise, not on horseback.'
'Could you not spend an afternoon at Milport, to meet the electors? There are not many of them, and those few are all my tenants, so it is no more than a formality; but there is a certain decency to be kept up. The writ will be issued very soon.' Then, seeing Jack's look of astonishment, he went on, 'I mean to offer you the seat.'
'Do you, by God?' cried Jack; and realizing the extent, the importance, the consequence of what his cousin had just said he went on, 'I think that amazingly handsome in you, sir; I take it more kindly than I can say.' He shook Mr Norton's thin old hand and sat staring for a while: possibilities that he hardly dared name flashed and glowed in his mind like a fleet in action.
Cousin Edward said 'I thought it might strengthen your hand in any dealings with government. There is not much merit in being a member of parliament, unless perhaps you represent your county; but at least a member with merit of his own is in a position to have it recognized. He can bite as well as bark.'
'Exactly so. He carries guns. The other day there was a man connected with the Ministry who came to see me unofficially and said that if I crawled flat on my face and begged for a free pardon it might perhaps be granted. And he either said or implied - I forget which - that if it were granted I might be put back on the list: reinstated. But I told him that asking forgiveness for a crime necessarily meant that the crime had been committed, and as far as I was concerned no crime had been committed. In effect I said dirty dogs ate hungry puddings - that is to say, hungry dogs ate dirty puddings; but in this case either I was not hungry enough or the pudding was too dirty, and I begged to be excused. So we left it; and I thought I had destroyed my chances for ever. But had I been a member, I do not think he would ever have broached the matter like that; nor, if he had done so, would he have left it there.'
'I am certain he would not, particularly if you were a steady, middle-of-the-road, Church-and-State kind of member, with no rant of any kind, as I am sure you will be. Not that I make any conditions, Jack: you shall vote as you please, so long as you do not vote to do away with the Crown.'
'God forbid, sir! God forbid!'
'Yet even as things stood, that was scarcely the way to speak to a man of your reputation.'
'I do not think he meant it ill. But he is one of those people in Whitehall, and I have always noticed that they really do believe they belong to a much higher order, as though they had been born on the flag-officers' list."
The butler came in, and addressing Mr Norton he said, 'Sir, Andrew desires me to say, with his duty, that the wheel is repaired; he has the coach in the yard at this moment, and do you please to have it round now or shall he put the horses up?'
'Let him bring it round now,' said Mr Norton, and as soon as the door was closed, 'Come, Jack, indulge me in a day's canvassing, will you? The Stag at Milport will give us quite a decent dinner and then we can have a bowl of punch with the burgesses afterwards. It is no more than a form, of course, but they will take it kindly. No doubt they will prate about the political situation rather more than is agreeable, but it is right to pay them this attention, and you can still be home on Wednesday. Or is it too great a sacrifice? Country politics can be a sad bore, I know.'
'Sacrifice, Cousin Edward?' cried Jack, springing up. 'You could ask a very, very great deal more than that, upon my word and honour. I should give my right arm to be back on the Navy List, or even half way there.'
In Dr Maturin's already comfortable, lived-in, book-lined room at the Grapes he and Padeen contemplated their baggage with satisfaction. One item was a trifling affair, as tight as a Leadenhall sausage, holding what was needed for Stephen's journey to Edinburgh - Stephen's alone, for Padeen was to sail north in the Surprise. But their real triumph was the Doctor's sea-trunk: Padeen had profited much from his friendship with Bonden, a prodigy with cordage, and the trunk now stood there in the middle of the floor, fastened with an intricacy of diagonal lines, a sort of network that would have filled any seaman with admiration: the laniards at each end were finished with a handsome Matthew Walker and the whole was topped with a double-crowned wall-knot.
'You have never forgotten my draught, Padeen, I am sure,' said Stephen. He did not choose to be more specific, but by draught he meant his nightly comfort of laudanum, as Padeen knew very well, it having, by this stage, become so much his own that he would as soon have forgotten his shirt (though indeed Padeen's steady dilution with brandy, even greater now, because of their temporary separation, had reduced the taking to little more than an act of faith). 'I have not, gentleman,' he replied. 'Is it not under the lid itself? And padded like a relic at that?'
A heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs Broad, pushing the door open with a crooked elbow, came in with two piles of fresh laundry between her outstretched arms and her chin. 'There, now,' she cried. 'All your frilled shirts got up prime, with the finest goffering-iron you ever seen. Mrs Maturin always liked them got up in Cecil Court,' she added in an aside to Stephen, and then loud and clear to Padeen, as though he were at the mast-head, 'In the wery middle, Padeen, between the spare sheets and the lamb's wool drawers.'
Padeen repeatedly touched his forehead in submission, and as soon as she had gone he and Stephen, having looked quickly round the room, moved chairs to the foot of a tall wardrobe. Even with a chair, however, Stephen was unable to reach the top and he was obliged to stand there, giving Padeen pages of The Times, then shirts, then more pages, and advice on just how they were to be laid; and he was in this posture, uttering the words 'Never mind the frill, so the collar do not show', when the slim, light-footed Lucy darted in, crying 'An express for the Doctor - oh, sir!' She understood the position in the first second; she gazed with horror and then with extreme disapprobation. They looked wretchedly confused, guilty, lumpish; they found nothing to say until Stephen muttered 'We were just laying them there for the now.'
Lucy pursed her lips and said 'Here is your letter, sir,' putting it down on the table.
Stephen said, 'You need not mention it to Mrs Broad, Lucy.'
Lucy said, 'I never was a tell-tale yet; but oh Padeen, and your hands all covered with the dust up there, for shame.'
Stephen took the letter, and his look of nervous guilt vanished as he recognized Jack Aubrey's hand. 'Padeen,' he said, 'wash your hands, will you now, and leap down to the bar and ask them to let me have a jug of lemon barley-water.' He pulled his elbow chair to the window and broke the familiar seal:
Ashgrove Cottage
My dear Stephen,
Give me joy! In his very great goodness my Cousin Edward has offered me the seat for the borough of Milport, which he owns: we went and passed a day or so among the burgesses, an affable set of men who were kind enough to say that because of St Martin's and the Azores affair they would have voted for me in any case, even if Cousin Edward had not advised them to do so.
While we were there a messenger came posting down from the Ministry with proposals for my cousin; but, said he, they could not be attempted to be entertained, since he was already committed to me: the messenger looked blank, and posted off again.
So I went home, after another day at Cousin Edward's place - he particularly wished me to see his roses at their height and I absolutely could not do less - and I was telling Sophie the news, with all that I hoped might follow from it, for perhaps the twentieth time, when Heneage Dundas walked in.
I knew Eurydice was come back, but I had not had time to go down to Pompey to welcome him home, and when I sent to ask him to dinner they said he had gone up to town, so we were not astonished to see him; we supposed he was returning to his ship and had turned off the road at the Jericho to look in upon us.
But we were surprised when, after having spoken very handsomely indeed about the Diane and having begged me to describe the cutting-out in the greatest detail, he grew rather strange, shy and reserved, and after a while said he was come not only as a friend but also as an emissary. The Ministry (said he) had heard that I was to be member for Milport; his brother rejoiced at the news because this additional influence in my favour would allow him to urge his colleagues even more strongly that I should be reinstated by mere motion - that is to say, without having to sue out any pardon. But in order to do so with full effect Melville would have to be able to assure them of my attitude in the House. It was not required that I should engage to support the Ministry through thick and thin, but Melville hoped he could say that at least I should not violently and systematically oppose it - that I should not be a vehement or enthusiastic member. I looked at Sophie, who knew perfectly well what I meant; she nodded, and I said to Heneage that it was excessively unlikely I should ever address the House on anything but a naval question, for I had seen too many sea-officers brought by the lee, meddling with politics; that in general I should be happy to vote for almost any measure proposed by Ld Melville, whom I esteemed so highly and whose father I owed such a debt of gratitude to. While as for enthusiasm or ranting, even my worst enemies could not accuse me of either. Heneage agreed and said nothing could possibly make him happier than carrying back such a message; that Melville had told him that in the event of a favourable answer the papers would be put in hand directly, and that although they would take some months to pass through all the proper channels, while the official announcement would not be made until it could coincide with some victory in the Peninsula or even better at sea, he undertook that my name and present command should be placed on a special list, and that I should not suffer in seniority.
Lord, Stephen, we are so happy! Sophie goes singing about the house. She says she would give anything for you to share our joy, so here I am scribbling this in the greatest haste, hoping it may catch you before you set out for Leith. But if it don't, then I shall have the delight of telling you when we meet in Sweden. There is only one change in our arrangements I wish to suggest, and that is that since we shall already be in the Baltic I should run across to Riga for cordage, spars and especially poldavy for our voyage: the finest poldavy I ever saw in my life came from Riga. God bless you, Stephen. Sophie bids me send her dear love.
Yours ever
Jno Aubrey
'What now?' cried Stephen, quickly sliding the letter under a book.
'If you please, sir,' said Mrs Broad, whose mild face was perfectly unconscious of the wardrobe, 'Sir Joseph is below, and asks if you are at leisure.'
'Certainly I am at leisure. Pray beg him to walk up."
'Heavens, Maturin, how glad I am to find you,' said Blaine. 'I was so afraid you might have set off already.'
'The mail does not leave until half-past six.'
'The mail? I had imagined you would take a chaise.'
'At fourteenpence a mile?' said Stephen, with a knowing, worldly look. 'No, sir."
