Patrick O'Brian - The Commodore

'I have not,' replied Stephen, wondering a little at Blaine's emphasis.

'Shall we take our coffee in the library?'

'By all means. It is the finest room in the club.'

Fine and even splendid it was, but its three great lustres shone upon books, comfortable chairs and Turkey carpet alone: never a member there.

'Stephen,' said Joseph, when the waiter had left them with a pot of coffee, a tray of petits fours and a decanter of cognac, 'I did not think it right to tell you what is in my mind in a public office, however closed the room. These hypothetical ears may be no more than one of the hallucinations of a mind too long and too closely engaged on what for lack of a better word I shall call intelligence, but they may exist, and that is why I am so happy that we are sitting together here in this warm and well padded desert.' He poured coffee and absentmindedly ate half a dozen little meringues. 'Your private letters asked me to take care of Clarissa Oakes and told me about her exceptional fund of information.' Clarissa, a young gentlewoman reduced to beggary, had worked in a fashionable brothel within a musket-shot of the clubs in St James's Street, where she was well placed for learning a great many curious facts. 'I did take care of her, getting poor young Oakes his promotion and a ship, and when he was killed I took her down to Diana. Her fund of information was indeed exceptional and with her help we quickly identified the limping gentleman with the Garter who was connected with those wicked buggers Wray and Ledward.' The wicked buggers - and Blaine used the gross word literally - had been concerned with passing secret intelligence, particularly naval intelligence, to the enemy; they had been betrayed by a French agent, and after many changes of fortune Stephen had cut them both to pieces in an East Indian dissecting-room.

'Unhappily he turned out to be a hemi-demi royal, the Duke of Habachtsthal. He was brought up mainly in England, but he has a little principality close to Hanover and a much larger estate on the Rhine, both now occupied by the French, of course, and ideally suited for French blackmail. The old King was very fond of him and if he had been a marrying man, which he is not, he might perhaps have had one of our princesses: but even without, he is very nearly untouchable.'

'If I do not mistake he has high army rank - perhaps only honorary - and considerable influence.'

'Yes. He acts as adviser to several bodies, and through his aide-dc-camp Colonel Blagden he may be said to sit on some important committees.' A pause, in which they both drank brandy, and then Blaine went on, 'Of course, there was no possibility of direct proceedings against him without absolutely cast-iron evidence like that we had against Ledward and Wray: and this we do not possess. However, we did make a good deal of distant thunder. You would never believe, Stephen, what Byzantine ways Whitehall possesses of conveying a threat, of causing it to echo from wall to wall until it reaches the intended ear.'

'What effect did it have?'

'Excellent, to begin with. Information had been going across, as in Ledward's time, and it stopped abruptly. But presently our gentleman came to a better understanding of his own impunity, and last month we lost the greater part of a West Indies convoy. More than that, he is a very old court and ministry hand and I believe he has traced the threat back to its source or is near to doing so. I am afraid of his resentment, both for myself and you: he was very much attached to Ledward, and even, in their strange fashion, to Wray. He is a bitterly revengeful man.. . I am by no means sure of all this, Stephen; but there are one or two things that increase my feeling of uneasiness, however weak, illogical and even superstitious it may be. One is that both Montague and his cousin St Leger seem to be fighting shy of me, as I dare say you noticed at the Committee, when I...'

A member in a bright blue coat with shining buttons walked in: he peered myopically at them, came a little nearer, and called out 'Sir Joseph, you have not seen Edward Cadogan, by any chance?'

'No, sir, I have not,' said Blaine.

'Then I shall have to look in the billiard-room.'

The door closed behind him and Blaine poured more brandy. 'Then again, you will remember you asked me to arrange pardons for both Mrs Oakes and your Padeen for the crime of returning from Botany Bay without leave. It seemed to me a matter of no difficulty: Clarissa is the widow of a sea-officer killed in a very creditable action, and in the right quarters I could mention unusual services rendered to Intelligence; while your interest with the Admiralty and some of your more illustrious patients would surely cover poor Padeen. But my unofficial approaches have not been satisfactory - strange delays - a hint of unavowed reluctance. I do not like to press a direct request, still less present it in writing, until I am sure of a favourable response. I had thought of abandoning the usual channels and applying to the Duke of Sussex, seeing that you and he are both fellows of the Royal Society and founder-members of the Council Against Slavery, but he is gone to Lisbon; and the first stages in a matter of this kind must be by word of mouth.'

'Certainly,' said Stephen.

'In any event,' said Blaine after a pause for consideration, 'this second instance is no more than academic. If the two in question do not advertise their presence the likelihood of their being disturbed is utterly remote; and I cite their case only as an example of the tainting effect of an important man's dislike. If he has made his aversion evident - if he has cried "That old fool Blaine at the Admiralty" let us say - the mews would spread; I should become at least slightly leprous, and no man in his senses would hurry to do me a favour. That is all. I do not intend to imply any direct malignity extending beyond me and perhaps you, if indeed that malignity exists at all, and is not the figment of a fagged-out mind and an overwrought imagination.'

Stephen took out a soft pouch made of llama-skin. 'These are the leaves of Erythroxylon coca, the cuca or coca shrub,' he said. 'I have used them for a great while, and so have most of the inhabitants of Peru. If you roll them into a moderate ball in your mouth, then add a little of this lime and so thrust it into your cheek, chewing gently from time to time, you will experience first an agreeable warm tingling of your tongue, the inner lining of your cheeks and the border of your larynx, followed by an increasingly remarkable and evident clarity of mind, a serenity, and a perception that almost all worries are of little real consequence, most of them being the result of confused, anxious and generally fallacious notions that crowd and increase in direct proportion to the decline of pure singleminded reason. I should not advise the taking of it now, if you value your night's sleep, since it tends to keep one awake, but do try it in the morning. It is the most virtuous of leaves.'

'If it diminishes anxiety by even a half per cent, pray let me have it at once,' said Blaine. 'The Dutch Duke is not the least of my cares, but he is much outweighed in real importance by the situation in the Adriatic, and in Malta once again, to say nothing of the present crisis in the Levant.'

The Ringle stood in to Shelmerston on the very last breath of the expiring north-east breeze, crossed the bar and dropped anchor inside the Surpnse, whose thin crew of ship-keepers greeted her with the expected cries: 'Where had they been?

What had they been a-doing of? Bowsing up their jibe, no doubt. The slow coach could have come down quicker. The waggon would have beat them by half a day.'

Stephen, Tom Pullings, Sarah, Emily and Padeen hurried ashore, piled into two chaises and set off directly for Ashgrove. But in spite of all their haste, express letters, signals and orders travelling by semaphore from the Admiralty roof to Portsmouth had preceded them, and it was with the third of these in her hand that Mrs Williams, a short, thick, red-faced woman, now redder than usual with excitement, said to her daughter Sophie Aubrey, "The Ringle passed Portland Bill at half-past four, so Dr Maturin is sure to be here this afternoon. I think it my duty - and Mrs Morris agrees with me - to tell Captain Aubrey the whole of Diana's disgraceful misconduct, so that he may break it gently to his friend.'