seven wounded, with a tale about driving a little privateer on to some more or less imaginary rocks and clamouring for a refit. Don’t tell me about bolts and twice-?laid stuff,’ he said, holding up his hand. ‘I’ve heard it all before. And I’ve heard about your carrying on ashore, before I came in. Let me remind you that a captain is not allowed to sleep out of his ship without permission.’
‘Indeed, sir?’ asked Jack, leaning forward. ‘May I beg you to be more particular? Am I reproached with sleeping out of my ship?’
‘I never said you slept out of it, did I?’ said Harte.
‘Then may I ask what I am to understand by your remark?’
‘Never mind,’ said Harte, fiddling with his paper-?knife: and then in an unconquerable jet of waspishness, ‘but I will tell you this - your topsails are a disgrace to the service. Why can’t you furl them in a body?’
The malignance was too obvious to bite. Crack frigates with a full, expert crew might furl their sails in a body rather than in the bunt, but only in harbour or for a Spithead review. ‘Well,’ said Harte, aware of this, ‘I am disappointed in you, as I say. You will go on the Baltic convoys, and the rest of the time I dare say the sloop will be employed up and down the Channel. That’s more your mark. The Baltic convoy should be complete in a few days’ time. And that reminds me: I have had a very extraordinary communication from the Admiralty. Your surgeon, a fellow by the name of Maturin, is to be given this sealed envelope; he is to have leave of absence, and they have sent down an assistant to take his place while he is away and to help him when he sees fit to return to his duty. I wish he may not give himself airs - a sealed envelope, forsooth.’
The post-?chaise drove briskly forward over the Sussex downs, with Stephen Maturin and Diana Villiers sitting in it with the glasses down, very companionably eating bread and butter.
‘So now you have seen your dew-?pond,’ she said comfortably. ‘How did you like it?’
‘It came up to my highest expectations,’ said Stephen. ‘And I had looked forward to it extremely.’
‘And I look forward to Brighton extremely, too: I hope I may be as pleased as you are. Oh, I cannot fail to be delighted, can I, Maturin? A whole week’s holiday
from the Teapot! And even if it rains all the time, there is the Pavilion - how I long to see the Pavilion.’
‘Was not candour the soul of friendship, I should say, “Why Villiers, I am sure it will delight you,” affecting not to know that you were there last week.’
‘Who told you?’ she asked, her bread and butter poised.
‘Babbington was there with his parents.’
‘Well, I never said I had not been - it was just a flying visit - I did not see the Pavilion. That is what I meant. Do not be disagreeable, Maturin: we have been so pleasant all the way. Did he mention it in public?’
‘He did. Jack was much concerned. He thinks Brighton a very dissolute town, full of male and female rakes - a great deal of temptation. He does not like the Prince of Wales, either. There is an ill-?looking smear of butter on your chin.’
‘Poor Jack,’ said Diana, wiping it off. ‘Do you remember- oh how long ago it seems - I told you he was little more than a huge boy? I was pretty severe about it: I preferred something more mature, a fully-?grown man. But how I miss all that fun and laughter! What has happened to his gaiety? He is growing quite a bore. Preaching and moralizing. Maturin, could you not tell him to be less prosy? He would listen to you.’
‘I could not. Men are perhaps less free with such recommendations than you imagine. In any case I am very sorry to say we are no longer on such terms that I could venture anything of the kind - if indeed we ever were. Certainly not since last Sunday’s dinner. We still play a little music together now and then, but it is damnably out of tune.’
‘It was not a very successful dinner: though I took such care with the pudding. Did he say anything?’
‘In my direction? No. But he made some illiberal flings at Jews in general.’
‘That was why he was so glum, then. I see.’
‘Of course you see. You are not a fool, Villiers. The preference was very marked.’
‘Oh no, no, Stephen. It was only common civility. Canning was the stranger, and you two were old friends of the house; he had to sit beside me, and be attended to. Oh, what is that bird?’
‘It is a wheatear. We have seen between two and three hundred since we set out, and I have told your their name twice, nay, three times.’
The postillion reined in, twisted about and asked whether the gentleman would like to see another dew-?pond? There was one not a furlong off.
‘I cannot make it out,’ said Stephen, climbing back into the chaise. ‘The dew, per se, is inconsiderable; and yet they are full. They are always full, as the frog bears witness. She does not spawn in your uncertain, fugitive ponds; her tadpoles do not reach maturity in your mere temporary puddle; and yet here they are -, holding out a perfect frog the size of his little finger nail - ‘by the hundred, after three weeks of drought.’
‘He is entrancing,’ said Diana. ‘Pray put him out, on the grass. Do you think I may ask what this delightful smell is, without being abused?’
‘Thyme,’ said Stephen absently. ‘Mother of thyme, crushed by our carriage-?wheels.’
‘So Aubrey is bound for the Baltic,’ said Diana, after a while. ‘He will not have this charming weather. I hate the cold.’
‘The Baltic and northwards: just so,’ said Stephen, recollecting himself. ‘Lord, I wish I were going with him. The eider-?duck, the phalarope, the narwhal! Ever since I was breeched I have pined to see a narwhal.’
‘What will happen to your patients when you are gone?’
‘Oh, they have sent me a cheerful brisk noisy good-?natured foolish young man with scrofulous ears - a vicious habit of body - to be my assistant. Those who are not dead will survive him.’
