‘Great-?coat, sir,’ said Killick. ‘Warm as toast. Now step into it before it gets cold.’
They buttoned him up, tweaked him into shape, and carried him downstairs, one at each elbow, so that his feet skimmed the steps, to where Bonden was waiting by the chaise. They packed him into the stifling warmth with understanding smiles over his head as he cried out that they were stifling him with their God-?damned rugs and sheepskins - did they mean to bury him alive? Enough damned straw underfoot for a regiment of horse. Killick and Bonden were cramming in the few last wisps and Jack was at the other door, about to get in, when he felt a touch upon his shoulder. Turning he saw a man with a battered face and a crowned staff in his hand - a quick glance showed two others at the horses’ heads and a reinforcement of burly sheriff’s officers with clubs. ‘Captain Aubrey, sir?’ said the man. ‘In the name of the law, I must ask you to come along with me - little matter of Parkin and Clapp -judgment summons. No trouble, sir? We will walk along quietly, no scandal? I’ll come behind, if you prefer it, and Joe will lead the way.’
‘Very well,’ said Jack, and leaning in at the window he said, ‘Stephen, I am nabbed - Parkin and Clapp -a caption. Please see Fanshaw. I’ll write to you at the Grapes, maybe join you there. Killick, get my valise out. Bonden, you go along with the Doctor: look after him, eh?’
‘Which sponging-?house?’ asked Stephen.
‘Bolter’s. Vulture Lane,’ said the tipstaff. ‘Every luxury, every consideration, all conweniencies.’
‘Drive on,’ said Jack.
‘Maturin, Maturin, my dear Maturin,’ cried Sir Joseph, ‘how extremely shocked I am, how concerned, how deeply moved.’
‘Ay, ay,’ said Stephen testily, ‘it is showy enough to look at, no doubt, but these are only the superficial sequelae. There is no essential lesion. I shall do very well. But for the moment I was obliged to beg you to visit me here; I could not manage the stairs. It was benevolent of you to come; I wish I could receive you better.’
‘No, no, no,’ cried Sir Joseph. ‘I like your quarters excessively - another age - most picturesque - Rembrandt. What a splendid fire! I trust they make you comfortable?’
‘Yes, I thank you. They are used to my ways here. Perfect, if only the woman of the house did not take it upon herself to play the physician, merely because I keep my bed some hours every day. “No, ma’am,” I say to her, “I will not drink Godfrey’s Cordial, nor try Ward’s drop. I do not tell you how to dress this salmagundy, for you are a cook; pray do not tell me how to order my regimen, for as you know, I am a medical man.” “No sir,” says she, “but our Sarah, which she was in just the same case as you, having been overset at the bear-?baiting when six months gone, took great adwantage from Godfrey; so pray, sir, do try this spoonful.”
Jack Aubrey was just the same. “I do not pretend to teach you to sail your sloop or poop or whatever you call the damned machine; do not therefore pretend -” But it is all one. Nostrums from the fairground quack, old wives’ remedies - bah! If rage could reunite my sinews, I should be as compact as a lithosperm.’
Sir Joseph had intended to suggest the waters of Bath, but now he said, ‘I hope your friend is well? I am infinitely obliged to him; it was a most heroic stroke. The more I reflect upon it, the more I honour him.’
‘Yes. Yes, it was. It appears to me that these coups can be brought off only by enormous pains, forethought, preparation, or by taking them on the volley; and for that a very particular quality is required, a virtue I hardly know how to name. Baraka, say the Moors. He possesses it in a high degree; and what would be criminal temerity in
another man is right conduct in him. Yet I left him in a sponging-?house at Portsmouth.’
Amazement; concern.
‘Yes. his virtue seems to apply only at sea; or in his maritime character. He was arrested for debt at the instance of a coven of attorneys. Fanshaw, his agent, tells me it was for a sum of seven hundred pounds. Captain Aubrey was aware that the Spanish treasure was not to be regarded as prize, but he had no notion that the news had spread in England; nor, I must confess, had I, since there has been no official announcement. However, I must not importune you with private discontents.’
‘My dear sir, my dear Maturin - I beg you will always speak to me as a personal friend, a friend who has a great esteem for you, quite apart from all official considerations.’
‘That is kind, Sir Joseph; it is very kind. Then I will tell you, that I fear his other creditors may get wind of his renewed difficulties and so load him with processes that he will be hopelessly involved. My means do not allow me to extricate him; and although the ex gratia payment you were good enough to mention may eventually extinguish the greater part of his debt, it will leave a considerable sum. And a man may rot in prison as thoroughly for a few hundred as for ten thousand pounds.’
‘Has it not been paid?’
‘No, sir. And I detect a certain reluctance in Fanshaw to make an advance upon it - these things are so unusual, says he, the event dubious, the delay unknown, and his capital was so very much engaged.’
‘It is not my province, of course: the sluggish Transport Board and the still more sluggish Ticket Office have to pass the vouchers. But I think I can promise something like despatch. In the meantime Mr Carling will speak a private word to Fanshaw, and I am sure you will be able to draw on him for the sum you mention. Mention.’
‘Should you like a window open, Sir Joseph?’
‘If it would not incommode you. Do you not find it a trifle warm yourself?’
‘I do not. The tropic sun is what I require, and a bushel of sea-?coals is its nearest equivalent. But it would scarcely answer for a normally-?constituted frame, I agree. Pray take off your coat - loosen your neckcloth. I do not stand on ceremony, as you see, with my nightcap and catskin comforter.’ He began to heave on a system of cords and purchases connected with the window, but sank back, muttering, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. No grip, no grip at all. Bonden!’
‘Sir?’ said Bonden, instantly appearing at the door.
‘Just clap on to that slab-?line, and tally and belay right aft, will you now?’ said Stephen, glancing at Sir Joseph with covert pride.
Bonden gaped, caught the Doctor’s intention, and moved forward. But with his hand on the rope he paused and said, ‘But I don’t hardly know, sir, that draught would be the thing. We ain’t so spry this morning.’
‘You see how it is, Sir Joseph. Discipline all to pieces; never an order carried out without endless wrangling.
