The Surgeon’s Mate. Patrick O’Brian
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were picked up by Java, some way off Brazil. But even then our troubles were not over, because some days later Java fell in with the American Constitution, and as you remember, the Americans beat her into a cocked hat.’
‘Oh, how well I remember: people absolutely wept when they heard the news. But they said it was not fair – that the American was not really a frigate at all, or that they had more guns or something.’
‘No: she was a frigate without any kind of doubt, a heavy frigate; and it was a fair fight, I do assure you. She would have been a tough nut to crack in any case, and in the event she used her guns better than we did: and we were taken.’
‘But the dear gallant Shannon has set that right,’ she said, laying her hand on his knee.
‘So she has,’ said Jack, laughing with pleasure. ‘And now I find it hard to remember how hipped we all were at the time. Well, the Americans were very good to us once it was all over: they sent most of Java’s people home in a cartel and carried those of us who were knocked about back to Boston. Maturin very handsomely volunteered to come with me and his other patients –’
‘You were wounded?’ she cried.
‘Oh, only a musket-ball in the arm,’ he said. ‘But it went bad, as these things will, and I should have lost it but for him. So there we were, do you see, prisoners of war in Boston. Our exchange was delayed for one reason or another, and finding the situation did not suit, Maturin and I took a boat, together with Diana Villiers –’
‘What in Heaven’s name was she doing there?’
‘She had been staying with friends, before the war was declared. And we sailed out to meet Shannon as she stood in to look into the harbour. Broke was kind enough to take us aboard and give us a passage to Halifax, and that is how –’
The rain he had promised, the rain foreseen by the toad, began to fall quite fast, and they ran in. Their entry was not particularly remarked: they were only one couple out of several, and they were preceded by a young lady who attracted far more comment, her white dress being liberally scattered with moss behind and even stained with the green of grass. Even so, they were not quite unnoticed. Colonel Aldington gave them a sullen, resentful look; and when Jack was drinking rum-punch to ward off the damp, Miss Smith having retired for a moment, he said, ‘Look here, Jack, this is all very fine and large, but you took my partner. I saw you steal away just as I came to claim her – I saw you – and I had to stand there like a fool all through that dance and the next. It ain’t right: no, it ain’t right.’
‘None but the brave deserve the fair,’ said Jack: and pleased with the thought he began to sing in his deep, surprisingly tuneful voice:
‘None but the brave
None but the brave
Deserve the fair ha, ha, ha! What do you say to that, Tom?’
‘I don’t know what you mean to imply about the brave,’ said the Colonel, exceedingly cross, ‘but if that is your idea of the fair, well, all I can say is, your idea is not mine. That’s all. I could say more: I could say that after what I heard just now it is no more than I might have expected. I could say something about reputations, and warn you not to burn your fingers, but I shan’t. And I could advise you to put your glass down and drink no more – you have had quite enough – but I shan’t do that, neither. You always was a self-willed –’
Miss Smith’s reappearance checked any retort that might have been forming in Jack’s mind: the music began again, and as he led her into the dance he observed that it was strange how differently wine took different men – some grew glum and fault-finding, some quarrelsome or tearful; for his part he found it did not affect him at all, except perhaps to make him like people rather more, and to make the world seem a more cheerful place. ‘Not that it could be much more cheerful than it is already,’ he added, smiling at the throng, where the greenbacked girl, dancing away totally unconscious of her betrayal, was adding much to the gaiety of nations.
‘Surely, Maturin,’ said Diana, as the night wore on, ‘Jack and Miss Smith are making themselves very conspicuous? Except when they vanish into corners, they are dancing together all the time.’
‘Let us hope they enjoy it,’ said Stephen.
‘No, but really, Stephen, as a friend, should you not tell him what he is at?’
‘I should not.’
‘No: I suppose not. But upon my word, that woman makes me feel quite indignant: seducing poor Aubrey is like taking pennies from a blind man’s hat – see him beaming all over his face and figuring away like a young buck! If it had been that jolly girl with the green back I should not say anything; but with a wrong ’un like Amanda Smith…’
‘A wrong ’un, Villiers?’
‘Yes. I knew her in India when I was a girl. She came out with the fishing-fleet – stayed with her aunt, a woman with just the same long nose and just the same idea of laying on the paint with a trowel. They come from Rutland, a raffish set: slow horses and fast women. She tried too hard there and she has tried too hard here; but the army is pretty cautious when it comes to actually marrying, you know; not at all like the Navy. And now her reputation is – well, not much better than mine. Jack really should take care.’
‘Certainly she seems unusually complaisant. But is she not perhaps a trifle silly, a little given to enthusiasm?’
‘Don’t you believe it. She may be an hysterical, flighty, unbalanced ass, but she has a pretty clear head when it comes to the main chance. He is known to be very well off: all the sailors call him Lucky Jack Aubrey. I tell you what, Stephen, unless the roof falls in, he will end the night in that woman’s arms; and then he may find himself in a pretty pickle. Could not you give him a hint?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘No. Perhaps not. You are not your brother’s keeper, after all; and I dare say it will be no more than a passade.’
‘Tell me, my dear,’ said Stephen, ‘what has happened to ruffle your spirits?’
She paused – three steps to the left, three steps to the right, true to the time – and gave him the direct answer he expected. ‘Oh, it was nothing,’ she said. ‘It was only that I was talking to Lady Harriet and Mrs Wodehouse when Anne Keppel came up. She gave me a broad stare and pretended to admire my diamonds – she did not remember having seen them in London – could never have forgotten such a rivière nor such a pendant – had I come by them in America? What had I been doing all this time? Impertinent woman. And I had noticed a chill before that. Colonel Aldington or some other old woman has been talking, I swear.’
Stephen made some remark about diamonds and jealousy, but she pursued her own line of thought, saying, ‘Oh, on such a night as this even the most virulent prude – though God help us, Anne Keppel has no stones to fling – could not be very unkind. But how I do hope we get a ship soon. Lady Harriet is a dear good woman, but even so, life in a station like this, with scrubs like Aldington and Anne Keppel spreading their ill-natured ragots right left and centre, would be hell after a very little while. Oh, bah,’ she said. ‘Come on, Stephen.’
They danced up the middle; and as he handed her across and received her again he saw that her mood had changed. The dangerous gleam, the raised head of defiance had given way to joy in the dance, to pleasure in the ball and its happy crowd bathed in music and the sense of victory. She was looking as handsome as ever he had seen her, and again he wondered at his own insensibility: and when she cast an eye over the turning dancers and said, with an intensely amused look, ‘I love that girl with the green on her back,’ he wondered even more, for Diana amused – and it was not a usual expression with her – was entrancing. Perhaps his insensibility was no more than a now habitual protection, a way of making the inner void more nearly tolerable: he certainly felt his heart move, as it were involuntarily. Then again, he too was enjoying himself very much more than ever he had expected: the void was still there, certainly, a blank like the white pages of a book after