The Commodore (23 page)

'The gentleman as courted Miss Sophie long ago, the cricketer?'

'Yes: well it turned out that it was Parson Hinksey as advised it - advised the lease and everything else, all the things they disagreed upon. He was over to Ashgrove at least every week all the time we were away, says Ned, and now he sat in the Captain's chair.'

'Oh,' said Bonden.

'Taken much notice of by Mother Williams and her tiemate; and by the children. Looked up to.'

Bonden nodded gloomily: an unpromising state of affairs.

'So there was words, and Parson Hinksey always being brought up. And Parson Hinksey calling very frequent. But that was nothing, nothing, against what happened when the Captain was in London and she went to dinner over to Barham, where Mrs Oakes looks after the poor Doctor's little natural.'

'She ain't a natural... She's as pretty a little maid as ever I see - talks away to Padeen in their language, and quite like a Christian to us. Laughs when the barky ships a sea, goes aloft on old Mould's shoulders, never seasick - loves the sea. We just run her and Mrs Oakes across to the Groyne in the tender. A dear little maid, and the Doctor is as happy as.. .' Before he could hit upon the very type of happiness Killick went on, 'Just what happened Nan could not tell, but it was to do with that there silk the Captain bought in Java and that we made Mrs Oakes's wedding dress out of.'

'I sewed its bodice,' said Bonden.

'Well, that only took part of the bolt and the rest was brought home as intended in the first place. So Mrs A wore it to this dinner where there was Parson Hinksey and some other gent: and when she came back she tore it off - said she would never wear such a rag again - and gave it to her maid, who showed Nan a piece - had never seen such lovely stuff, she said.'

'I do not know what to make of that,' said Bonden.

'Nor did I,' said Killick. 'Not until it all came down through Mrs A's particular maid Clapton and her friends down to Nan. But it seems that when the Captain came back a day or so after this dinner there was a letter waiting for him about the lease that vexed him, and he checked Mrs A with seeing too much of Parson Hinksey, of thinking more of his advice than her husband's, and perhaps he said something else, being carried away, like. Anyway, it was far, far more than she could bear and she went for him like a Tartar, right savage - calling out that if he could use her so, and accuse her so, while she was wearing his trull's leavings and being civil to her, she would be damned if she had anything more to do with him and she took off her ring and told him he might - no, she never said that: she tossed it out of window. But she might have said it, and worse: nobody ever thought she had so much spirit or fury in her, nor such a power of dragging him up and down, though with never a tear nor a foul word nor breaking things. Well, that was just before we sailed. He slept in the summerhouse the last few days and she in a dressing-room with a locked door; and there were no fond farewells at parting, though the children saw him to his boat and waved, and...

A ship's boy put his head over the rail and said 'Mr Killick, sir, Grimble asks is he to take up the duck or wait for you? Which Commodore's cook says it will spoil, else.'

'Killick,' said the Commodore, passing him an empty gravyboat, 'tell my cook to fill this with something that very closely resembles gravy or take the consequences. Heaven and earth alike revolt against a parched and withered duck,' he added, addressing Stephen.

'If a duck lack unction, it forfeits all right to the name,' said Stephen. 'Yet here are some aiguillettes - what is the English for aiguillettes? - from the creature's inner flank that will go down well enough with a draught of this Hermitage.'

'I wish I could carve like that,' said Jack, watching Stephen's knife slice the long thin strips. 'My birds generally take to the air again, spreading fat in the most disastrous fashion over the table and the laps of my guests.'

'The only vessel I ever sailed turned ignominiously upside down,' said Stephen. 'Each man to his own trade, said Plato: that's justice.'

The gravy came, somewhat pale and thin, but adequate: Jack ate and drank. 'Surely you will have a little more?' he said. 'The bird lies before you, or what is left of it. And another glass of wine?'

'I will not. I have done quite well; and as I said, I must be tolerably Spartan. I shall probably have a busy day tomorrow, starting early. But I will join you when the port comes on.'

Jack ate on without embarrassment - they were very old friends, differing widely in size, weight, capacity, requirements - but without much appetite either.

Stephen said 'Will I tell you another of Plato's observations?'

'Pray do,' said Jack, his smile briefly returning.

'It should please you, since you have a very pretty hand. Hinksey quoted it when I dined with him in London and we were discussing the bill of fare: "Calligraphy," said Plato, "is the physical manifestation of an architecture of the soul." That being so, mine must be a turf-and-wattle kind of soul, since my handwriting would be disowned by a backward cat; whereas yours, particularly on your charts, has a most elegant flow and clarity, the outward form of a soul that might have conceived the Parthenon.'

Jack made a civil bow, and pudding came in: spotted dog. He silently offered a slice to Stephen, who shook his head, and ate mechanically for a while, before pushing his plate away.

Killick brought the port, with bowls of almonds, walnuts and petits fours. Jack told him that he might turn in and stood up to lock the doors of both coach and sleeping-cabin after him, taking no notice of his shocked 'What, no coffee?'

'I did not know you had dined with Hinksey,' he said, sitting down again.

'Of course you did not. It was when I ran up to London in the tender, and you were already at sea. I ran into him in the back of Clementi's shop, where he was turning over scores - pianoforte and harpsichord. I found him very knowing, conversible on the subject of your old Bach, and carried him back to Black's, where we had a moderately good dinner. It would have been better if a table of soldiers had not started roaring and bawling. Still, we ended the evening very agreeably, prating about the Bendas in the library: we might play some of their duets that I brought with me when we have finished our wine.'

'Oh, Stephen,' said Jack, 'I have no more heart for music than I have for food. I have not touched my fiddle since we put to sea. But to go back to Hinksey, what do you think of him?'

'I find him very good company: he is a scholar and a gentleman, and he was very kind to Sophie while we were away.'

'Oh, I am much obliged to him, I know,' said Jack, and in a growling undertone he added 'I only wish I may not be too deeply obliged to him - I wish I may not have to thank him for a set of horns.'

Stephen took no notice of this deep muttering: his mind was elsewhere. 'I remember,' he said at last. 'They were playing at the cricket, and someone struck or caught the ball in such a way that there was a general cry of approbation. My neighbour cried "Who was it? Who was it?" springing up and down. "It was the handsome gentleman," said her companion. "Mr Hinksey." He is generally thought good looking.'

'Handsome is as handsome does,' said Jack. 'I cannot imagine what they see in him.'

'Oh, with his athletic form - which you cannot deny - and his amiable qualities - he seems to me admirably adapted to please a young woman. Or a woman of a certain age, for that matter.'

'I cannot imagine what they see in him,' repeated Jack.

'Perhaps your imagination runs on different wheels, my dear: but, however that may be, it appears that Miss Smith, Miss Lucy Smith, sees so much that she has accepted his offer of marriage. This he told me, not without a certain modest triumph, at the end of our dinner: and before we parted he told me that the lady's father, one of the great men of the East India Company, so thoroughly approves the match that he has used all his influence to have Mr Hinksey appointed Bishop - Anglican bishop, of course - of Bombay. Perhaps Bombay - perhaps Madras or Calcutta - or possibly suffragan bishop - my mind was a little confused by the toasts we drank - but at all events a noble Indian establishment for him and his bride. Jack, we are still in the region of beer, are we not?'

'Beer? Oh yes, I dare say so... Stephen, I cannot tell you how glad I am you told me all this... So he is to be married?

I had been so afraid... Stephen, the port stands by you I had been on the point of unbosoming myself... foolish, discreditable thoughts.'

'I rejoice you did not, brother. The closest friendship cannot stand such a strain: the results are invariably disastrous.'

'I am so happy,' observed Jack, after a moment; and indeed he could be seen swelling with it. 'But what was that about beer?'

'I asked whether we were still in the beer region, or domain, that part of the ocean in which the beer we bring from home and which we serve out daily at the absurd and criminal rate of a gallon - a gallon: eight pints! - a head, is still available. Has the beer not yet given way to the even more pernicious grog?'

'I believe we are still on beer. We do not usually run out before we raise the Peak of Tenerife. Should you like some?'

'If you please. I particularly need a light, gentle sleep tonight; and beer, a respectable ship's beer, is the most virtuous hypnotic known to man.'

In time Jack returned with a quart can, from which they took alternate draughts as they sat gazing astern at the longrunning wake in the moonlight.

'But you know,' said Jack, 'I made no direct accusations.'

'Brother,' said Stephen, 'you can give a woman a great wounding kick on the bottom and then assert you never slapped her face.'

Half a pint later Jack went on, 'Still, she really should not have said "your trull" when as you know very well I was perfectly innocent in that case.'

'In that case.. . on how many others were you not as guilty as ever your feeble powers would allow? For shame to quibble so. It was unfortunate; but it gives you no moral height at all. None whatsoever. Your only course is to crawl flat on your belly, roaring out Peccavi and beating your bosom. And I will tell you something, Jack: both you and Sophie are afflicted, deeply afflicted, with that accursed blemish jealously, that most pernicious flaw, which sours all life both within and without; and if you do not heave your wind you may be hopelessly undone.'

'I have always prided myself on a perfect freedom from jealousy,' said Jack.

'For a great while I prided myself on my transcendent beauty, on much the same grounds; or even better,' said Stephen.

They finished their beer; and presently Stephen, coming back into the cabin from the quarter-gallery, said 'But I am glad you did not open your mind: later you would have held it against me, and in any case I could not have given you the sympathy that you would have felt your right. In the morning I must almost certainly cut a man for the stone, and marital discord, above all that which is based upon misapprehensions, seems trifling in comparison with undergoing a lithotomy at sea and a probable death in extreme apprehension, inhuman suffering and distress of mind - the ultimate distress of mind.'

Chapter Seven

Mr Gray underwent the operation with the utmost fortitude. Physically he had no choice, since he was immovably attached to the dreadful chair, his legs wide apart and his bare belly open to the knife: the fortitude was on another plane altogether and although Stephen had cut many and many a patient - patient in the sense of sufferer - he had never known anything to equal Gray's steady voice, nor his perfectly coherent thanks when they cast off the leather-covered chains and his shockingly-marked pale glistening face sank back at last.

The loss of any patient grieved Stephen professionally and often personally and for a long time. He did not think he should lose Gray, although indeed the case had been almost desperate; but a sullen deep infection slowly gained in spite of all that Dr Maturin could do and they buried him in two thousand fathoms some time before the squadron picked up the north-east trades.

The wind, though steady, blew gently at first and the Commodore had an excellent proof of his ships' sailing qualities: when they were making their best way consonant with keeping station, the Bellona could give the Stately royals and lower studdingsails; the Aurora could outsail both twodeckers; but the Thames could only just keep up. It did not seem to Jack the fault of her hull, nor a want of activity when the hands raced aloft to loose sail, but rather the absence of anyone in authority who understood the finer points of sailing - sheets hauled aft by main force, the tack hard down, and bowlines fiddle-string taut whenever the breeze came a little forward of the beam was their universal maxim, though they still outshone all the rest in the matter of gleaming brass and paint; and it had to be admitted that they now fired their guns a little quicker, if not much more accurately. The smaller ships, Smith's twenty-gun Camilla and Dick Richardson's twenty-two-gun Laurel, were his delight, however. They were both excellently well handled and they both had many of the virtues, of the dear Surprise, being good sea-boats, very weatherly, and almost as devoid of leeway as a square-rigged ship could possibly be.

'I will tell you what it is, Stephen,' said Jack, and they standing in the stern-gallery surrounded by gilt figures of a former age, the age of long waistcoats, 'the glass has shot up in a very whimsical fashion, and in these waters I have never known that happen without there followed a clock-calm or something close to it. In the last dog-watch - oh, Stephen, whenever I say that I remember your exquisitely beautiful explanation: that the short watch was so called because it was curtailed - cur-tailed - so dog - oh ha, ha, ha, ha - and I often laugh aloud. Well, if my calculations and Tom's and the master's are right, we should then cut the thirty-first parallel, and I must open my sealed orders. Our noon observation was so close that I really could have done so then, but I have a superstitious reverence for such things. How I hope there will be good news in them - orders to seek out the enemy - something like real wartime sailoring - with a squadron this size it would not be unusual - rather than skirmishing about for a parcel of miserable slavers .