The Fortune of War (22 page)

'He often spoke of going to medical school. But to be frank with you, Doctor, I did not like to trust him with the money. His connection with Mrs Wogan is very painful to me: and since I believe that she has interested motives, I mean to starve her out. I should go a more decided way about it and have her taken up as a vagabond, if it were not for what is after all my grandchild, Caroline. A most remarkable baby, Dr Maturin.'

'I had the pleasure of seeing her yesterday.'

'Ah, had you known her 'dear great-grandmother, you would have seen the likeness directly; you would certainly have remarked upon it. A delightful child - such pretty ways. So, you understand, sir, I am obliged to make

Michael an allowance, not to lose Caroline; and although of course I cannot receive Mrs Wogan publicly, I do see her from time to time. But my visits are very rare, and the allowance is very small. Do you think my course is well advised, sir? I should be grateful for your opinion.'

Stephen considered. He could do no harm: he might possibly do some good. He said, 'I believe you are wise, sir. Yet I believe you would be wiser still in sending Michael to the medical school.' And then, since the words might reinforce the possible good, although they were blasphemy to him as a lover, he added, 'A connection of this kind rarely fails to die away when it is coupled with possession and with prolonged discouragement, and above all if an engrossing new interest, such as medicine, enters into competition with it.'

'Perhaps you are right. Yes, yes, I believe you are right. Dr Herapath, ha, ha! But do you really suppose he could qualify himself?'

Stephen spoke of medical studies, instanced men barely capable of telling right from wrong who had passed through them with success, and stated that he had no doubt but that one who had mastered Chinese could do as much and more. He felt that he had made his point, and when Mr Herapath moved on to some tolerably illiberal abuse of Mrs Wogan and of women from the Southern states in general - Mr Herapath would not say this except to a physical gentleman, but it seemed that they were insatiable, sir, insatiable - he listened without contradicting.

'Yet has Mrs Wogan no sources of income other than the allowance you mention?' he asked after a while. 'I noticed that she kept three servants, which in England would argue a certain modest ease.'

'That vile Sally and the foot-boys? Oh, they are only slaves, sent up from her cousin's place near Baltimore. She would sell them if she could, but that is not so easy in Massachusetts; and anyhow, who would buy such a parcel of slubberdegullions? And so I have to feed the whole eternal pack of bone-idle good-for-nothing brutes.'

'Baltimore is in Maryland, is it not?'

'Yes, sir: right up the Chesapeake. Good tobacco-land and worthless people.'

'Do you know of a Mr Henry Johnson, who comes from those parts?'

'Why do you ask?' said Herapath sharply. 'Have you heard anything about him?'

'Mrs Wogan mentioned his name. It appears that he is acquainted with friends of mine.'

'Oh, I thought maybe...' Mr Herapath's voice died away; he coughed, and went on, 'Well, now: Mr Harry Johnson is a very wealthy man; he probably owns more slaves than anyone else in the state. He is a great Republican, and many of his friends are in power; he is counsellor to the Secretary of State, and he is often here in Boston. I keep my eye on him, because he knows Louisa Wogan. And to tell you the truth, sir,' - lowering his voice - 'I hope he may rid me of her; he is the greatest whoremaster in the South. But at the same time, I am very much afraid she might take my Caroline with her.'

'I have a certain, perhaps unfounded impression,' said Stephen, 'that Mrs Wogan is a somewhat detached parent. There may be a relative lack of that instinctive storgé, which equally binds the she-bear and the matron to their puling young.'

'She is an unnatural cat,' cried Mr Herapath, and there the conversation languished: Mr Herapath fell to poking the fire with savage stabs. 'I mentioned my friends some time ago, Dr Maturin,' he said at last. 'Much good may come of a meeting, since they are all gentlemen of a like mind with me. Would you come tomorrow? We should like to make our sentiments known in Halifax as soon as possible - to convey them by means of a man of real weight and consequence - and you will be exchanged very soon, as I suppose. We have information to give, not indeed of a military but rather of a political nature that may be of the first importance in bringing this war to an end. Some of my friends are among the most important merchants in New England, and they know a great deal in the political and commercial line; we are all suffering from this war - for example, I have three ships tied up here in Boston and two more at Salem. But do not suppose, sir, that our motives are entirely selfish. We are concerned for our trade, it is true, but there are motives far higher than any trade.'

'I am convinced of it, sir,' said Stephen. 'Yet, Mr Herapath, you are a former. Loyalist: your opinions cannot be unknown to the authorities, and the most elementary prudence requires that they should watch your house.'

'If they were to watch all the households in Boston that are opposed to Mr Madison's war, they would need a couple of regiments.'

'But not all these households include an eminent citizen, the proprietor of five considerable vessels. I should be happy to give your friends the meeting, but I had rather it took place in some discreet tavern or coffee-house.'

'I own more than that,' said Mr Herapath. 'However, you may be right; it may be wiser. I honour your caution, Dr Maturin. It shall be so.'

In order that it might be so he walked Stephen home a roundabout way that took them past the harbour. He pointed out two of his barques, tied up against the wharf, their tall masts reaching up until they were no more than a faint trace in the fog. 'That is Arcturus,' he said, 'seventeen hundred tons burden, and the other Orion, a little better than fifteen hundred. If it were not for this damned war, they would be plying to the Far East and back, out by the Cape for Canton, and home by the East Indies and the Horn, with three thousand tons of silks and tea and spices, with china under all; but much as I respect the gentlemen of the Royal Navy I cannot afford to offer them prizes of that value. So here they lie, with nothing but a couple of ship-keepers in them. Joe!' he shouted.

'What now?' called Joe from out of the fog.

'Mind your fenders.'

'I am a-minding of them, ain't I?'

'God's my life,' said Herapath to Stephen, 'to speak to the owner so, and a black man at that! It could never have happened in the old days. With his democratical notions, that wicked fellow Jefferson has rotted the moral fibre of the whole country.'

Jefferson, who had prompted Joe's reply, lasted until they reached a tavern, a quiet, respectable place frequented by shipmasters, which would do very well for their meeting, and then, having impressed the place on Stephen's memory, Herapath led him up the hill, through a series of alleys. 'How well you know your way,' said Stephen.

'It would be strange if I did not,' replied Herapath. 'My sister Putnam has been in Dr Choate's care these many years, and I visit her every new moon. She is a werewolf.'

'A werewolf,' said Stephen to himself, and he turned it over in his mind until they went up a flight of steps and the familiar building came in sight. At the 'gates of the Asciepia they uttered expressions of mutual esteem, and Mr Herapath left his best compliments for Captain Aubrey if, in view of his son's conduct, they should be acceptable, together with an offer of any assistance that the Captain might stand in need of. 'I should dearly love to show my gratitude,' he said, 'for although Michael may not be all I could wish, he is my son, and Captain Aubrey preserved him from drowning.'

'Perhaps you would like to walk in for five minutes?' said Stephen. 'The Captain is not well enough for a longer visit, but I believe it would do him good to see you. He loves to talk of ships with those who understand them, and in spite of the circumstances to which you refer, he retains an affectionate memory of your son.'

The Captain was asleep when they came into the room: asleep, with a look of deep unhappiness on his face, and the face was pallid, unhealthy, the long-established tan faded to a nasty yellow, the breathing laboured, with a râle that Stephen did not like to hear at all. 'What you need, my friend,' he said to himself as they stood there, 'is a victory, even quite a small victory, by sea; otherwise, you will eat your heart out - pule into a decline. Failing that, I believe we must try more steel and bark... steel and bark.'

'Why, Stephen, there you are,' said Jack, opening his eyes, wide awake at once, as he always was.

'So I am, too; and I have brought Mr Herapath with me, the father of my assistant who behaved so very well during our epidemical distemper. Mr Herapath also served the King in the former war, and he is the owner of several eminent ships, two of which you have remarked upon -they can be seen from this window here.'

'Your servant, sir,' said each, and Jack went on. 'Those two fine barques with the Nelson chequer and pole topgallantmasts, the finest in the harbour?'

Mr Herapath made his acknowledgments for Jack's preservation of his son, and they fell to talking of the ships:

Herapath had made several voyages; he loved the sea, and he was a more amiable person here than in his own house. Their conversation was animated, and free.

Sitting by the window and looking at the fog, Stephen drifted far away: in less than four and twenty hours Diana would be here. Images of her moving, walking across the room, riding, setting her horse at a fence, flying over with her head held high. A distant clock struck the hour, followed by several more.

'Come, gentlemen,' he said.

'What a fine fellow!' cried Herapath as Stephen led him down the stairs. 'The very type of the sea-officer when I was young - no coldness, no pride, nothing like those army men. And a prodigious fighting-captain! How well I remember his action with the Cacafuego! Oh, if only Michael could have been like him...'

'I liked that man,' said Jack. 'He did me good. lie knows his ships from stem to stern, and he has sound political ideas: he hates a Frenchman as much as I do. I should like to see him again. How did he ever contrive to have such a son?'

'Your own may turn into a book-worm or a Methody parson,' said Stephen. "Tis just as the whim bites, no more; for as you know, one man may lead a horse to the water, but ten cannot make him think. But tell me, Jack, how do you feel, and how did you spend your afternoon?'

'Pretty well, I thank you. I saw the Chesapeake come in, one of their thirty-eights; a beautiful ship. I suppose there must have been fog out there too, beyond the bay -anyway, she passed our squadron and came in, in fine style. She is lying beyond the President, near the ordnance quay: you will see her when it clears.' While Stephen took his pulse he told him more about the Chesapeake and about the progress on the other frigates, and then he said, 'By the way, I had a luminous idea. Those Navy Department fellows are all to seek. I have been working it out with an almanack and I find that at the time I am supposed to have brought their Alice B. Sawyer to, Leopard was tearing along at twelve or thirteen knots with the Dutchman in her wake. It is materially impossible that I should have brought anything to. I am quite easy in my mind.'

'Bless you,' said Stephen. And in one of his very rare bursts of confidence he went on, 'I wish I could say the same. Diana will be in Boston shortly, and I am wondering what course to pursue - whether to inflict myself upon her, perhaps unwelcome, perhaps untimely; or whether to affect a frigid indifference and let her make the first step, always provided that she should choose to do so, and that she knows of our being here.'

'Lord, Stephen,' cried Jack, but no more, until recollecting himself he sat up and reached for a letter on his bedside table. 'Speaking of the devil, here is a note for you, perhaps it is from her. Our capture was in the papers. Though I must not say the devil,' he added, after a pause. 'She behaved very handsomely, writing home to tell Sophie we were alive, and I shall always think kindly of her.'

It was not from Diana. Louisa Wogan asked dear Dr Maturin to call on her; she would be alone any time after ten o'clock, and she had a great deal to say to him. But before Stephen had time to make any comment, Dr Choate and his patients, two doors away, struck into the triumphant opening bars of the Clementi C major quintet, playing with a sustained virtuosity and joy that kept their listeners silent until the sombre disenchantment of the finale.

Mrs Wogan was as who should say alone, since she did not count the occasional presence of her slaves, and Michael had taken Caroline to see her grandfather. She had, rather touchingly, dressed for the occasion, and Stephen noticed an emerald ring of surprising size and beauty.

Their conversation was long, and on Louisa Wogan's side remarkably frank. She reminded Stephen of the growth of their friendship, of his distress at the prospect of war between England and the United States, of his support for liberty in Ireland, Catalonia, Greece, and any country where freedom was threatened, of his abhorrence of the English way of pressing American sailors, and of his kindness to the American whalers on Desolation Island - they were, she said, much attached to him. She then went on to say that, as Stephen knew, she had been educated in France and had lived much in Europe; she had been intimately acquainted with some of the most interesting and influential men in Paris and London, and for this reason she had been able to advise certain American representatives abroad. She possessed the languages, local information, and introductions that were valuable to them; they had consulted her, and they had even given her confidential missions to perform. Their aim had always been the maintenance of peace and of their country's liberty. It was in the course of one of these missions that she had fallen foul of the English law: that was why she was sent to Botany Bay. The English had wanted to hang her, but fortunately she had friends who saved her neck. Botany Bay was an amazingly savage punishment for what in fact amounted to very little, yet at least she had thought she was shot of those odious British intelligence people: but not at all - their malice pursued her even aboard the Leopard. Did Stephen remember some papers in French that were supposed to have been found among a dead officer's belongings and that the Captain gave to Michael Herapath to write out? Stephen had a vague recollection of such a 'task.