The Reverse of the Medal. Patrick O’Brian
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people or even paying for our own part of the war. I have a brother in the City, and he tells me that the funds have never been so low, and that trade is at a stand: men walk about on Change with their hands in their pockets, looking glum: there is no gold to be had – you go to the bank to draw out some money, money that you deposited with them in guineas, and all they will give you is paper – and nearly all securities are a drug on the market: South Sea annuities at fifty-eight-and-a-half for example! Even East India stock is at a very shocking figure, and as for Exchequer bills . . . There was a flurry of activity at the beginning of the year, with a rumour of peace causing prices to rise; but it died away when the rumour proved false, leaving the City more depressed than ever. The only thing that prospers is farming, with wheat at a hundred and twenty-five shillings the quarter, and land is not to be had for love or money; but at present, sir, a man with say five thousand pounds could buy stock, capital stock, that would have represented a handsome estate before the war. Here are some papers and magazines that will tell it all in greater detail; they will depress your spirits finely, I do assure you. Yes, Billings,’ – this to a clerk – ‘what is it?’
‘Although there is no mail for Captain Aubrey, sir,’ said Billings, ‘Smallpiece says there was someone inquiring for him, a black man; and he conceives the black man might have a message at least, if not a letter.’
‘Was he a slave?’ asked Jack.
‘Was he a slave?’ called Billings, cocking his ear for the answer. Then, ‘No, sir.’
‘Was he a seaman?’ asked Jack.
No, he was not; and when at last Smallpiece came sidling in, intensely, painfully shy and almost inarticulate, it appeared that the black man seemed to be an educated person – had first inquired for Surprise in a general way among those that went ashore, when first the squadron came to Bridgetown, and then, since the frigate was reported in these waters, more particularly for Captain Aubrey.
‘I know no educated black man,’ said Jack, shaking his head. It was not impossible that a West Indian lawyer might employ a Negro clerk; and affairs being in so critical a state at home, it was not impossible that the clerk might wish to serve a writ on him. This could only be done on shore, however, and Jack instantly determined to remain aboard throughout his stay. He took the newspapers, thanked Mr Stone and his clerks, and returned to the quarterdeck. Here he found his midshipman, horribly shabby among all the snowy flagship youngsters, but obviously stuffing them up with prodigious tales of the Horn and the far South Sea, and to him he said, ‘Mr Williamson, my compliments to Captain Goole and would it be convenient if I were to wait upon him in ten minutes.’
Mr Williamson brought back the answer that Captain Aubrey’s visit would be convenient, and to this, on his own initiative, he added Captain Goole’s best compliments. He would have made them respectful too, if a certain sense of the possible had not restrained him at the last moment; for he loved his Captain.
During this time Jack leant over the quarterdeck rail, by the starboard hances, in the easy way allowed to those of his rank, looking down into the waist and over the side. He had given his bargemen leave to come aboard and there was only the boatkeeper in the gig, talking eagerly to some unseen friend through an open port on the lower deck. There were several hands on the gangway and in the waist who stood facing aft and looking at him fixedly in the way peculiar to former shipmates who wished to be recognized, and again and again he broke off his small-talk with the first and flag lieutenants to call out ‘Symonds, how do you do?’ ‘Maxwell, how are you coming along?’ ‘Himmelfahrt, there you are again, I see,’ and each time the man concerned smiled and nodded, putting his knuckle to his forehead or pulling off his hat. Presently Barret Bonden and his Irresistible brother came up the forehatchway and he noticed that both of them looked at him not only with particular attention but also with that curious, slightly amused and even arch expression that he had seen, more or less clearly, on the faces of those men in the flagship who had sailed with him before. He could not make it out, but before he could really put his mind to the question his time was up and he walked aft to the captain’s cabin.
Of his own free will Captain Goole would never have received Captain Aubrey. Midshipman Goole had behaved meanly, discreditably over that far-distant tripe; he had played a material though admittedly subordinate part in the theft, he had eaten as much as anyone in the berth; and on being hauled up before Captain Douglas he had blown the gaff – while utterly denying his share he had nevertheless turned informer. It was a pitiful performance and he had never forgiven Jack Aubrey. But he had no choice about seeing him; in the matter of formal calls the naval etiquette was perfectly rigid.
‘I would not receive him, still less introduce him to you,’ said Goole to his wife, ‘if the rules of the service did not require it. He will be here directly, and he must stay for at least ten minutes. I shall not offer him anything to drink, however; and he will not take root. In any case he drinks far too much, like his friend Dundas – another man who cannot keep his breeches on, by the way – half a dozen natural children to my certain knowledge – birds of a feather, birds of a feather. It is the ruin of society.’ A pause. ‘You would never think so to look at him now, but Aubrey was once considered handsome; and it may be that which – hush, here he is.’
Jack had not forgotten Captain Douglas’s tripe, nor the spectacular consequences of its theft – consequences that had seemed catastrophic at the time, although in fact he could scarcely have spent his time more profitably, since his half-year as a common seaman gave him an intimate, inside knowledge of the lower deck, its likes and dislikes, its beliefs and opinions, and of the true, unvarnished nature of its daily life – nor had he forgotten Goole. But he had forgotten the details of Goole’s conduct, and although he remembered him as something of a scrub he bore him no ill-will; indeed, as he now walked into the cabin he was quite pleased to see such an old shipmate and he congratulated Goole on his marriage with perfect sincerity, smiling upon them both with an amiable candour that improved Mrs Goole’s already favourable opinion of him. She did not find it at all surprising that he had been considered handsome; even now, although his scarred, weather-beaten countenance had nothing, but nothing, of the bloom of youth and although he weighed too much, he was not ill-looking; he had a certain massive, leonine style, and he fairly towered over Goole, who had no style of any kind; and his blue eyes, all the bluer in his mahogany face, had the good-natured expression of one who is willing to be pleased with his company.
‘I am a great friend to marriage, ma’am,’ he was saying.
‘Indeed, sir?’ she replied; and then, feeling that something more was called for, ‘I believe I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Aubrey just before I left England, at Lady Hood’s.’
‘Oh, how was she?’ cried Jack, his face lighting up with extraordinary pleasure.
‘I hope she was the same lady, sir,’ said Mrs Goole hesitantly. ‘Tall, with golden hair done up so, grey eyes and a wonderful complexion; a blue tabby gown with long sleeves gathered here – ’
‘Really, Mrs Goole,’ said her husband.
‘That is Sophie for sure,’ said Jack. ‘It is an age since I had any word from home, being the far side of the Horn – would give the world to hear from her – pray tell me just how she looked – what she said – I suppose none of the children were there?’
‘Only a little boy, a fine little boy, but Mrs Aubrey was telling Admiral Sawyer about her daughters’ chickenpox, now so far behind them that she had allowed Captain Dundas to take them a-sailing in his cutter.’
‘Bless them’ cried Jack, sitting down beside her; and they engaged in a close conversation on the subject of chickenpox, its harmless and even beneficent nature, the necessity for passing through such things at an early age, together with considerations on the croup, measles, thrush, and redgum, until the flagship’s bell reminded him that he must return to the Surprise for his fiddle.
The diseases that Dr Maturin and Mr Waters discussed were of quite a different order of gravity, but at last Stephen stood up, turned down the cuffs of his coat, and said, ‘I believe I may venture to assert, though with all the inevitable reserves, of course, that it is not malignant, and that we