long black hair, sometimes a set of teeth this has both hair and teeth. It belonged to a Mr Elkins of the City, an eminent cheese-?monger. I prize it much.’
‘By God,’ cried Jack, thrusting it back into the holster and wiping his hand vehemently upon the horse, ‘I do wish you would leave people’s bellies alone. So you have no pistols at all, I collect?’
‘If you wish to be so absolute, no, I have not.’
‘You will never make old bones, brother,’ said Jack, dismounting and feeling the horse’s leg. ‘There is an inn, not a bad inn, half a mile off the side-?road: what do you say to lying there tonight?’
‘Your mind is much disturbed by the thought of these robbers, highwaymen, footpads?’
‘I tremble so that I can hardly sit on my horse. It would be stupid to get knocked on the head, to be sure, but I am thinking more of my horse’s legs. And then again,’ he said, after a pause, ‘I have a damned odd feeling: I do not much care to be home tonight. Strange, because I had looked forward to it - lively as a libertyman this morning -and now I do not care for it so much. Sometimes at sea you have that feeling of a lee-?shore. Dirty weather, close-?reefed top-?sails, not a sight of the sun, not an observation for days, no idea of where you are to within a hundred miles or so, and at night you feel the loom of the shore under your lee:
you can see nothing, but you can almost hear the rocks grinding out your bottom.’
Stephen made no reply, but wound his cloak higher against the biting wind.
Mrs Williams never came down to breakfast; and quite apart from this the breakfast-?room at Mapes was the most cheerful in the house; it looked south-?east, and the gauze curtains waved gently in the sun, letting in the smell of spring. It could not have been a more feminine room -pretty white furniture, a green sprigged carpet, delicate china, little rolls and honey, a quantity of freshly-?washed young women drinking tea.
One of these, Sophie Bentinck, was giving an account of a dinner at the White Hart which Mr George Simpson, to whom she was engaged to be married, had attended. ‘So then the toasts went round, and when George gave “Sophia” up starts your Captain Aubrey. “Oh,” cries he,”I will drink that with three times three. Sophie is a name very dear to my heart.” And it could not have been me, you know, for we have never met.’ She gazed about her with the benevolence of a good-?natured girl who has a ring on her finger and who wishes everybody to be as happy as herself.
‘And did he drink it with three times three?’ asked Sophia, looking amused, pleased and conscious.
‘It was the name of his ship, you know, his first command,’ said Diana quickly.
‘Of course I know it,’ said Sophia with an unusual flush. ‘We all know it.’
‘The post!’ shrieked Frances, rushing out of the room. An expectant pause, a temporary truce. ‘Two for my mother, one for Sophie Bentinck with a sweet blue seal of a cupid
- no, it’s a goat with wings - and one for Di, franked. I can’t make out the frank. Who’s it from, Di?’
‘Frankie, you must try to behave more like a Christian, sweetheart,’ said her eldest sister. ‘You must not take notice of people’s letters: you must pretend to know nothing about ‘em.’
‘Mama always opens ours, whenever we get any, which isn’t often.’
‘I had one from Jemmy Blagrove’s sister after the ball,’ said Cecilia, ‘and she said he said she was to say I danced like a swan. Mama was in a horrid wax - correspondence most improper, and anyhow swans did not dance, because of their webbed feet: they sang. But I knew what he meant. So your Mama allows you to correspond?’ she said, turning to Sophie Bentinck.
‘Oh, yes. But we are engaged, you know, which is quite different,’ said Sophie, looking complacently at her hand.
‘Tom Postman does not pretend to know nothing about peoples letters,’ said Frances. ‘He said he could not make out Di’s frank either. But the letters he is taking to Melbury are from London, Ireland and Spain. A double letter from Spain, with a vast sum to be paid!’
The breakfast-?room at Melbury was cheerful too, but in a different way. Sombre mahogany, Turkey carpet, ponderous chairs, the smell of coffee, bacon and tobacco and wet men: they had been fishing since dawn and now they were half-?way through the breakfast to which they were entitled, a breakfast that reached all over the broad white table-?cloth: chafing dishes, coffee-?pots, toast-?racks, a Westphalian ham, a raised pie as yet untouched, the trout they had caught that morning.
‘This was the one from under the bridge,’ said Jack.
‘Post, sir, if you please,’ said his servant, Preserved Killick.
‘From Jackson,’ said Jack. ‘And the other from the proctor. Forgive me, Stephen. I will just see what they have to say - what excuse.
‘My God,’ he cried, a moment later. ‘It can not be true.’
Stephen looked up sharply. Jack passed him the letter. Mr Jackson, his prize-?agent, one of the most respectable men in the profession, had failed. He had bolted, run off to Boulogne with what remained of the firm’s cash, and his partner had filed his petition in bankruptcy, with no hope of paying sixpence in the pound.
‘What makes it so very bad,’ said Jack in a low, troubled voice, ‘is that I told him to put all Sophie’s prize-? money into the funds as it came in. Some ships take years to be finally condemned, if the owners appeal. He did not do it. He gave me sums he said were interest from funds, but it was not true. He took it all as it came in, kept it in his own hands. It is gone, every last farthing.’ He stared out of the window for some time, poising the other letter in his hand.
‘This one is from the proctor. It will be about the two neutrals that were on appeal,’ he said, breaking the seal at last. ‘I am almost afraid to open it. Yes: just so. Here is my lee-?shore. The verdict is reversed: I am to pay back eleven thousand pounds. I do not possess eleven thousand pence. A lee-?shore. . . how can I claw off? There is only one thing for it: I will give up my claim to be made post and beg for a sloop as a commander. A ship I must have. Stephen, lend me twenty pounds, will you? I have no ready money. I shall go up to the Admiralty today. There is not a moment to lose. Oh, I have promised to ride with Sophia: but I can still do it in the day.’
‘Take a post-?chaise. You must not arrive fagged out.’
‘That is what I shall do - you are quite right, Stephen. Thank you. Killick!’
