The Commodore (8 page)

The carriage drew up before the great middle door; no lights to be seen within. The little girls woke, anxious, dismayed; Padeen began unstrapping the baggage; Stephen rang the bell and knocked, his heart beating high.

No answer, but somewhere in the back of the house, perhaps the kitchen, a dog began to bark. He knocked again, the queer feeling in his bosom: pulled the bell-wire; and the bell itself could be heard ringing far inside.

A light through the cracks of the door; it opened on the chain and Clarissa's voice asked 'Who is there?'

'Stephen Maturin, my dear. I am sorry we are so late.'

The chain came off with a rattle and the door swung wide, showing Clarissa with a lantern on a table by her side and a horse-pistol in her hand. 'Oh how very glad I am to see you,' she cried, yet with a certain embarrassment in her joy. She carefully uncocked the pistol - evidently loaded and for use - laid it on the table and held out her hand. 'Nonsense,' he cried, 'we embrace' and kissed her.

'You have not changed,' she said, smiling, and stood back, motioning him in.

'You are alone, I doubt?' said he, not moving but with his eyes searching the long dark hall and his ears on the strain.

'Yes.. . yes,' she answered hesitantly. 'Well, but for Brigid.' He went out, settled with the post-boy and came back with the little girls, Padeen following with the baggage. 'Here are some old shipmates, Clarissa,' he said, leading them forward. 'Sarah and Emily, you must make your bobs to Mrs Oakes, and ask her how she does.'

'How do you do, ma'am?' they said in unison.

'Very well indeed, my dears,' she replied, kissing them. She shook Padeen's hand, and although they had not agreed very well when they sailed together in the Nutmeg the travellers now felt much drawn to a well-known face and a familiar voice in these utterly strange and foreign surroundings. Not only was the country strange - nothing of shipboard about it, nothing of the pleasures of a port, filled with unknown people who might fly out at you - but this particular house was quite outside their experience. It was in fact an unusual building, tall, gaunt and cold, one of the few large old houses that had not been altered in the last two centuries, so that the great hail ran right up the whole height to the roof, sombre indeed on such an evening and by the light of a single lantern.

Clarissa led them slowly, almost as it were reluctantly, quite through its length and then turned right-handed into a carpeted room with candles and a fire. A small girl was building card-houses on a table near the grate.

Clarissa murmured 'Do not mind if she does not speak,' and Stephen could feel the controlled anguish in her voice.

The girl at the table was lit by the fire and two candles: she was three-quarters turned towards Stephen and he saw a slim fair-haired child, quite extraordinarily beautiful: but with a disquieting, elfin, changeling beauty. Her movements as she handled the cards were perfectly coordinated; she glanced at Stephen and the others for a moment without the least interest, almost without ceasing to place her cards, and then carried on with the fifth storey.

'Come, my dear, and pay your duty to your father,' said Clarissa, taking her gently by the hand and leading her, unresisting, to Stephen. There she made her bob, standing as straight as a wand, and with only a slight shrinking away she allowed her face to be kissed. Then she was led to the others; their names were clearly stated; they too made their bobs and Brigid walked easily back to her card-house, unconscious of their smiling black faces, though she did look straight up into Padeen's for a moment.

'Padeen,' said Clarissa, 'will you go down that long corridor, now? The first door on your right hand' - she held up her right hand- 'is the kitchen, and there you will find Mrs Warren and Nellie. Please give them this note.'

Stephen sat in an elbow-chair away from the light, watching his daughter. Clarissa asked Sarah and Emily about their journey, about Ashgrove and about their clothes. They all sat on a sofa, talking away readily enough as their shyness wore off; but their eyes were fixed on the slight, wholly self-possessed, self-absorbed figure by the hearth.

Mrs Warren and Nellie took some time to appear, since they had to fetch clean aprons and caps to be presented to the Doctor - the master of the house, after all. An ancient whitemuzzled kitchen dog shuffled in after them and the first relief to Stephen's quite extraordinary pain - extraordinary in that he had never known any of the same nature or the same intensity - came when the old dog sniffed at the back of Brigid's leg and without stopping her left hand's delicate motion she reached down with the other to scratch his forehead, while something of pleasure showed through her gravity. Otherwise nothing disturbed her indifference. She saw her tall cardhouse fall, the tottering victim of a draught, with perfect composure; she ate her bread and milk together with Emily and Sarah, unmoved by their presence; and after a good-night ceremony in which Stephen blessed her she went off to bed with neither reluctance nor complaint. He observed with still another kind of pang that if ever their eyes met hers moved directly on, as they might have moved on from those of a marble bust, or of a creature devoid of interest, since it belonged to a different order.

'Can she speak at all?' he asked when he and Clarissa were sitting at the dining-table - cold chicken and ham, cheese, and an apple-pie: the servants sent off to bed long since. 'I am not sure,' said Clarissa. 'On occasion I have heard her doing something very like it; but she always stops when I come in.'

'How much does she understand?'

'Almost everything, I believe. And unless she is in one of her bad days she is very good and biddable.'

'Affectionate, would you say?'

'I like to think so. Indeed, it is probable; but the signs are hard to make out.'

Stephen ate wolfishly for a while, and cutting himself another piece of cheese he said 'Will you tell me about Diana? I mean, what you feel you can properly say.' Clarissa looked at him doubtfully. 'I do not mean lovers or anything you cannot tell of a friend. For you were friends, I believe?'

'Yes. She was very kind when Oakes was at sea, and kinder still when he was killed; although by that time it was already perfectly clear that Brigid was not like ordinary people, which distressed her extremely, so that she drank too much and might then speak wildly and be indiscreet. But she was very kind. She taught me to ride: such joy. Very kind, and I am not an ungrateful creature, you know,' said Clarissa, laying her hand on Stephen's arm. 'But there were reserves. I believe she was deeply convinced that I was or had been your mistress. When I protested my complete indifference where such matters were concerned she only smiled politely, repeating that catch-phrase Les hommes, cest difficile de s'endormir sans; and I could not prove my point with the confidences that you so kindly listened to on that remote island when we were aboard the Nutmeg, dear ship. Confidences, I may say, that I have never made to anyone but you, and never shall: and as you and Sir Joseph advised, for the world in general I am a governess who disliked her employment in New South Wales and ran away with a sailor.'

'When do you suppose her unhappiness began?'

'Oh, very early; well before I knew her. I believe she missed you cruelly. And from what I have heard the birth was worse than usual - an interminable labour and a fool of a man midwife. The baby was put out to nurse, of course. When it came back it looked enchanting and she thought she would certainly love it. But already there was this total indifference. The child wished neither to love nor to be loved. Diana had never come across anything of the kind and she was completely bewildered as well as being wounded to the heart. When I came I think it was some relief, but it was not nearly enough and she grew more and more unhappy and often difficult. Her aunt Williams was very unkind indeed, I believe. And as time went on there was no improvement in Brigid: rather the reverse. The indifference grew to positive aversion, and even to a cold dislike.'

'Did any of my letters reach her?'

'None while I was here: none except that which Oakes and I brought back, of course. They would have been of the greatest help. She began to give up hope: so many ships are lost. And yet she dreaded your return. Obviously. Presently she took against this house: you would not have wished her to buy it; and indeed it is cold, lonely and inconvenient. The horses she loved almost until the end, but then suddenly she told me that she was giving up the stud, though it was quite successful, and the next week they were all sent up to Tattersalls with Mr Wilson, the manager, all except a stallion and two mares who went into the north country - I forget the name of the house. Near Doncaster. All the grooms except for old Smith, who was to look after my little Arab and the pony and trap, were dismissed, though I know she wrote about among her friends to find new places for them; and she begged me to stay on here with Brigid until she could make arrangements. She left me a quantity of money and said she would write. I did hear from her once, in Harrogate; but not since.'

'She never was a letter-writer.'

'No. Yet she did write one that I was to give to you, should the frigate bring you home. Would you like to see it now?'

'If you would be so good.'

While she was away he rolled himself a large ball of coca leaves; before she opened the door again he tossed them into the fire.

'I am sorry to have been so long,' she said. 'Please open it at once, if you wish. I will bring some port, if I can find it.'

Stephen, he read, I know you loathe women who have fortitude, but I have not the courage to bear it any longer. If you come back, if ever you come back, do not, do not despise me.

Clarissa returned with a decanter. They neither of them spoke for a while: the rain could be heard pouring from the eaves. Eventually Stephen poured the wine, and coming back to the commonplace world he said 'Clarissa, I am infinitely obliged to you for staying and looking after my daughter. I must go to town with Sarah and Emily tomorrow but if I may I shall leave Padeen here with you. Now that the house is empty it is not fit you should be here with no more than one elderly groom. I have promised to be back at Ashgrove a week before the squadron sails, and by then I hope we can make better arrangements.' There was always Bath, he said, speaking somewhat at random, and the coast of Sussex; while Gosport offered a pleasant naval society, for really so isolated a place as Barham Down would weigh upon an angel's spirits, in time. Clarissa agreed that the house itself was cold, dark and sad, but it did have glorious rides about it: she had grown much attached to riding.

'Sure, a cheerful horse is a delightful, understanding companion,' said Stephen with something of a smile. 'But now, my dear, when we have drunk our port - and a very decent bottle it is - I should like to retire, if I may. Where am I to sleep?' He heard himself utter the question: almost immediately he saw that it was, that it might be, equivocal and his mind turned quickly in foolish circles.

Clarissa remained silent, looking grave. 'I have been thinking,' she said. 'Nellie and I turned out Diana's room on Friday. A mouse had made her nest between one of the bedposts and the curtain, a soft round ball with five pink creatures inside. She ran off, of course, but we left the nest in a box, and when she came back I closed the lid and carried them away to the hay-loft. For the moment I could not remember whether we made up the bed again, but now I am quite certain of it. New sheets and clean curtains.'

Chapter Three

'Papa,' shouted Fanny as she ran, still two hundred yards from the coach-house, 'Papa, your uniform is come.'

'Fan,' cried Charlotte, the fatter twin, several lengths behind, 'you are not to bawl out like that. And Miss O'Hara will hear you. You are to wait for me. Wait, oh do wait.' Her sister flitted on however, and Charlotte, coming to a halt, clapped her right hand behind her ear, in the manner of her old friend Amos Dray hailing the foretop in a gale of wind, and roared 'Papa. Papa there, your admiral's uniform is come.' Then, hoarse with the effort, she added in little more than an ordinary shout 'Oh George, shame on you,' for at this moment her little brother came racing into the stable-yard from the far end. With a better sense of timing and distance he had cut across the kitchen-garden, burst through the gooseberries regardless of their thorns, and had dropped from the wall into the back lane: now ran at full speed into the coach-house, where he gasped out 'Papa. Oh sir. Your uniform is come. In Jennings' own dog-cart.'

'Thankee, George,' said his father. 'Jennings is always punctual. I do love a man that is true to his hour. Hold this strap, will you?' He had been home long enough for the children to have grown quite used to him again; and now his daughters rushed in without the least ceremony, repeating the news as though vehemence and a wealth of detail - who saw the dogcart first and from what distance: the colour of the horse and of the packages: their number and shape - would restore something to its freshness.

'Yes, my dears,' said Jack, smiling at them - they were pleasant hoydens, between childhood and adolescence, almost pretty, and sometimes as graceful as foals - 'George told me. Clap on to the buckle, there.'

He was wholly unmoved, and with some indignation Charlotte cried 'Well, ain't you going to come and try it on? Mama said you would certainly come and try it on.'

'There is no need. Everything was in order at the last fitting, bar a few buttons to be shifted and the epaulettes. Yet I may come up when George and I have finished this surcingle.'

'Then please may we open the epaulette-case? We have never seen an admiral's epaulette close to; but Miss O'Hara says we must not touch it on any pretext whatsoever without permission; and Mama has gone to fetch Granny and Mrs Morris.'

'Oh Papa, won't you come up and put on just the undress coat?'

'Please sir,' cried George, 'please may I see the presentation sword again? You will certainly wear your presentation sword in full dress: that's poz.'

Jack ran up the ladder into the loft for an awl and a hank of saddler's twine.