‘Mr Lever called at Melbury,’ said Cecilia. ‘Captain Aubrey had gone to London - he is always going to London, it appears - but he saw Dr Maturin, and says that he is quite strange, quite like a foreign gentleman.
He was cutting up a horse in the winter drawing-?room.’
‘How very undesirable,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘They will have to use cold water for the blood. Cold water is the only thing for the marks of blood. Do not you think, Admiral, that they should be told they must use cold water for the marks of blood?’
‘I dare say they are tolerably used to getting rid of stains of that kind, ma’am,’ said the admiral. ‘But now I come to think of it,’ he went on, gazing round the room ‘what a capital thing it is for you girls, to have a couple of sailors with their pockets full of guineas, turned ashore and pitched down on your very doorstep. Anyone in want of a husband has but to whistle, and they will come running, ha, ha, ha!’
The admiral’s sally had a wretched reception; not one of the young ladies joined in his mirth. Sophia and Diana looked grave, Cecilia tossed her head, Frances scowled, and Mrs Williams pursed up her mouth, looked down her nose and meditated a sharp retort.
‘However,’ he continued, wondering at the sudden chill in the room ‘it is no go, no go at all, now that I recollect. He told Trimble, who suggested a match with his sister-?in-?law, that he had quite given up women. It seems that he was so unfortunate in his last attachment, that he has quite given up women. And indeed he is an unlucky wight, whatever they may call him: there is not only this wretched business of his promotion and his father’s cursed untimely marriage, but he also has a couple of neutral prizes in the Admiralty court, on appeal. I dare say that is why he is perpetually fagging up and down to London. He is an unlucky man, no doubt; and no doubt he has come to understand it. So he has very rightly given up all thoughts of marriage, in which luck is everything - has quite given up women.’
‘It is perfectly true,’ cried Cecilia. ‘There is not a single woman in the house! Mrs Burdett, who just happened to be passing by, and our Molly, whose father’s cottage is directly behind and can see everything, say there is not a woman in the house! There they live together, with a parcel of sailors to look after them. La, how strange! And yet Mrs Burdett, who had a good look, you may be sure, says the window-?panes were shining like diamonds, and all the frames and doors had been new-?painted white.’
‘How can they hope to manage?’ asked Mrs Williams. ‘Surely, it is very wrong-?headed and unnatural. Dear me, I should not fancy sitting down in that house. I should wipe my chair with my handkerchief, I can tell you.’
‘Why, ma’am,’ cried the admiral, ‘we manage tolerably well at sea, you know.’
‘Oh, at sea. . . ’said Mrs Williams with a smile.
‘What can they do for mending, poor things?’ asked Sophia. ‘I suppose they buy new.’
‘I can just see them with their stockings out at heel,’ cried Frances, with a coarse whoop, ‘pegging away with their needles - Doctor, may I trouble you for the blue worsted? After you with the thimble, if you please.” Ha, ha, ha, ha!’
‘I dare say they can cook,’ said Diana. ‘Men can broil a steak; and there are always eggs and bread-?and-? butter.’
‘But how wonderfully strange,’ cried Cecilia. ‘How romantic! As good as a ruin. Oh, how I long to see ‘em.’
The acquaintance was not slow in coming. With naval promptness Admiral Haddock invited the ladies of Mapes to dine with the newcomers, and presently Captain Aubrey and Dr Maturin were asked to dinner at Mapes; they were pronounced excellent young men, most agreeable company, perfectly well-?bred, and a great addition to the neighbourhood. It was clear to Sophia, however, that poor Dr Maturin needed feeding properly: ‘he was quite pale and silent,’ she said. But even the tenderest heart, the most given to pity, could not have said the same for Jack. He was in great form from even the beginning of the party, when his laugh was to be heard coming up the drive, until the last repeated farewells under the freezing portico. His fine open battle-?scarred countenance had worn either a smile or a look of lively pleasure from the first to the last, and although his blue eye had dwelt a little wistfully upon the stationary decanter and the disappearing remains of the pudding, his cheerful flow of small but perfectly amiable talk had never faltered. He had eaten everything set before him with grateful voracity, and even Mrs Williams felt something like an affectionate leaning towards him.
‘Well,’ she said, as their hoof-?beats died away in the night, ‘I believe that was as successful a dinner-?party as I have ever given. Captain Aubrey managed a second partridge - but then they were so very tender. And the floating island looked particularly well in the silver bowl: there will be enough for tomorrow. And the rest of the pork will be delicious, hashed. How well they ate, to be sure: I do not suppose they often have a dinner like that. I wonder at the admiral, saying that Captain Aubrey was not quite the thing. I think he is very much the thing. Sophie, my love, pray tell John to put the port the gentlemen left into a small bottle at once, before he locks up: it is bad for the decanter to leave port-?wine in it.’
‘Yes, Mama.’
‘Now, my dears,’ whispered Mrs Williams, having left a significant pause after the closing of the door, ‘I dare say you all noticed Captain Aubrey’s great interest in Sophia -he was quite particular. I have little doubt that - I think it would be very nice if we were all to leave them alone together as much as possible. Are you attending, Diana?’
‘Oh, yes, ma’am. I understand you perfectly well,’ said Diana, turning back from the window.
Far over in the moonlit night the pale road wound between Polcary and Beacon Down, and the horsemen were walking briskly up it.
‘I wonder, I wonder,’ said Jack, ‘whether there is any goose left at home, or whether those infernal brutes have eaten it up. At all events, we can have an omelette and a bottle of claret. Claret. Have you ever known a woman that had any notion of wine?’
‘I have not.’
‘And damned near with the pudding, too. But what charming girls they are! Did you notice the eldest one, Miss Williams, holding up her wine-?glass and looking at the candle through it? Such grace . . . The taper of her wrist and hand - long, long fingers.’ Stephen Maturin was scratching himself with a dogged perseverance; he was not attending. But Jack went on, ‘And that Mrs Villiers, how beautifully she held her head: lovely colouring. Perhaps not such a perfect complexion as her cousin - she has been in India, I believe - but what deep blue eyes! How old
