lamentable trollopy wench the moment he set foot ashore, and eventually was obliged to be placed under restraint. However, when we really set to, in consequence of a damned odd contretemps I shall tell you about, he behaved nobly. And young Callow, the very hideous boy, is shaping well: it was very good for the midshipmen to see a thorough refit carried through at the double, with some operations that are rarely done when a ship is in commission; and I kept them by me all the time. I hardly went ashore either, apart from duty-?calls and a dinner with the Admiral.
Now here, dearest Sophie, I enter into shoaling water, without a chart; and I am afraid I may run myself aground; being, as you know, no great hand with a pen. However, I shall carry on as best I can, trusting in your candour to read me aright. Scarcely an hour before I received your last packet, I was amazed to learn Diana Villiers was in Bombay; and that you knew, and Stephen knew, she was there. Two things came into my mind directly. In the first place I conceived it might cause you uneasiness was I to go ashore, she being there; and in the second, I was much concerned for Stephen. I break no confidence (for he has never spoke to me about such matters; not plain, I mean) when I tell you he has been and I fear still is much attached to Diana. He is a deep old file, and I do not pretend to any great penetration; but I love him more than anyone but you, and strong affection supplies what intellect don’t - he lit up like a boy when we reached soundings (I wondered at it at the time) and he lit up again when I mentioned her name, though he tried to hide it. He had known she was in Bombay from the beginning. When he landed he found out she was away, up country, but that she should be back on the seventeenth. He had the strongest intention of seeing her; and there is no shaking him, of course. I turned it over in my mind and it was certain to me, that either she would use him barbarously, or he would fight Canning: or both. He is better than he was; far, far better; but he is in no fit state to fight or to be treated rough.
So I decided to get away to sea by that date; all the more so, that it would bring me home earlier.
And by going very hard at our refitting, I flattered myself I had brought it off. But I must say I had my doubts. He vanished for days and days, and I was very dissatisfied with him for cutting a muster and for not being aboard to see to his stores and the sick-?bay - there was no finding him, no word from him; and when Mr Stanhope came aboard he mentioned having been with him and Mrs Villiers to Elephanta Island. I had made up my mind to put him under arrest if I could lay my hands on him; but I could not. I was angry, as well as being very concerned; and I determined, when he came aboard, to give him an official rebuke, as well as a piece of my private mind, as a friend.
We were at single anchor in the channel, blue peter at the fore since daybreak, when his boat appeared at last, and what with the heat, the anxiety, the jaded feeling of having been up all night, and some foolish words with the envoy’s secretary, who would be making a nuisance of himself, I was ready to give him a trebly-?shotted broadside. But when I saw him, my heart failed me: you would not credit how unhappy and ill he looked. He is as dark as a native, with the sun; but yet he somehow looked pale - grey is more the mark.
I am afraid she must have been most bitterly unkind, for although we have been at sea some days now, and although we are back in our regular course, sailing with a fair wind for escort on a warm sea, which is the best way I know of setting the ugly side of shore-?life far astern, his spirits don’t recover. I could almost wish for some benign plague to break out in the ship, to rouse him; but so far only Babbington is on the sick-?list - the rest of the ship’s company are amazingly well, apart from Mr Rattray and a couple of men with the sun-?stroke. I have never seen him so low, and now I am very glad I did not reprove him: apart from anything else, it would have been precious awkward, living together mewed up so close together as we are, block by block, with Mr Stanhope and his people taking up all the room. However, at least I think we may hope it is all over, and salt water and absence will waste it away. He is sitting over against me now, on the starboard locker, studying in a Malay dictionary, and you would say he was quite old. How I wish we could find one of Mons. de Linois’s frigates and lay her aboard, yardarm to yardarm: we ply our guns pretty brisk now, and I make no doubt we should thump it into her with some effect. There is nothing like it for suddenly raising your spirits.
And even a man-?of-?war, which don’t fetch much in the way of prize-?money, being in general handled rough before you can get possession of her, would set us up in a neat cottage. I have been thinking so of this neat cottage, Sophie! Pullings understands everything in the earthy line, his people having a farm; and I have been talking to him about gardening, and it is clear to me that with proper attention two people (not much given to luxury) could feed admirably well off a rood of moderate land. I should never grow tired of fresh green stuff, nor potatoes for that matter, after so many years of hard tack. In this drawing you will see I have attended to the due rotation of crops: plot A is root vegetables for the first year. Heaven knows when you will see the plan: but with any luck we may fall in with the Company’s China fleet, and if we do, I shall send this and the rest of my packet by one of them - many of the homeward-?bound China ships don’t touch at Calcutta or Madras - and then you may have it before Christmas. However, the fleet’s motions depend upon Linois’s; if he is anywhere near the Straits they won’t sail; so perhaps I shall be my own postman after all.’
He drifted into a reverie, seeing trim rows of cabbages, cauliflowers, leeks; stout and well-?grown, untouched by caterpillars, wireworms, leatherjackets or the dread onion-?fly; a trout-?stream at the bottom of the garden with good pasture along its banks, and on the good pasture a mild pair of cows, Jersey cows. Following the stream down he saw the Channel at no great distance, with ships upon it; and through the temperate haze upon this sea he was conscious of Stephen smiling at him.
‘Will you tell me what you were musing upon, now?’ said Stephen. ‘It must have been rarely pleasant.’
‘I was thinking about marriage,’ said Jack, ‘and the garden that goes with it.’
‘Must you have a garden when you are married?’ cried Stephen. ‘I was not aware.’
‘Certainly,’ said Jack. ‘I had provided myself with a prize, and my cabbages were already springing up in rank and file. I don’t know how I shall bear to cut the first. Stephen,’ he cried, suddenly breaking off, ’should you like to see a relic of my youth? I had hoped to show it to you when we were alongside the sheer-?hulk, but you did not turn up; however, I have preserved it. The sight will raise your heart.’
‘I should be happy to see a relic of your youth,’ said Stephen, and they walked on to the calm deck, calm with the peace of Sunday afternoon, calm and placidly crowded. The awning rigged for church was rigged still; and beneath its shade the gunroom officers, Mr Stanhope’s people, and most of the midshipmen took their ease, or as much of it as they could; for now that church was over, the cabin’s, the coach’s, the gunroom’s and the berth’s hencoops and smaller livestock, including Mr Stanhope’s nanny-?goat had reappeared, and since there was little air to temper the fiery sun - the Surprise was running before the wind - they were all crowded into the shade. Yet at the same time the officer of the watch took his ritual turns fore and aft with a telescope under his arm, while the mate and the midshipman of the watch paced all the quarterdeck that was available on the other side, the timoneer stood at the wheel, the quartermaster conned the ship, two boys, the duty-?messengers, stood meek as mice, though often trodden upon, in their due places, and an eager young Bombay mongoose threaded busily among them all, frightening the hens. Jack paused to compliment Mr White on his sermon (a strongly-?worded confutation of Arminianism) and to inquire for Mr Stanhope, who had managed to take a little dry toast and broth, and who hoped to recover his sea-?legs in a day or two.
Followed by Stephen, he moved forward along the gangway, filled with seamen in their Sunday rig - many a splendid Indian handkerchief - some gazing over the hammock-?cloths at the empty sea or conversing with their mates in the chains, some walking up and down, revelling in idleness; and so to the forecastle, which was deeply packed with men: for not only was it too hot to stay below, but a game was in progress, the ancient country game of grinning through a horse-?collar, with a prize for who should be the most hideous. The collar was the hoop
