Patrick O'Brian - The Commodore

He returned to the quarterdeck and there paced for a while in the sweet evening. The squadron was standing south-southeast under an easy sail and from the forecastle of the Stately, next astern, came the sound of music, the hands dancing in the last dog-watch. At one point he saw Killick in the halfdarkness, who said to him 'There will be a rare old duck for supper tonight, sir,' in a kindly, protective tone before padding along the gangway to the forecastle: thence by way of the shrouds, he reached the foretop, that broad, comfortable platform high above the deck, with folded studdingsails for cushions and a splendid view of the leading ships steering for Africa under courses and single-reefed topsails beneath a sky already filling with starts. But Killick was as indifferent to the stars as he was to the beauty of the Laurel, the lovely little twenty-two-gun ship just ahead. He had come aloft by appointment, to one of the very few places in the ship (zoo people and more in a space 170 feet long by 46 feet 9 inches wide at the most and almost entirely filled with stores, provisions, water, guns, powder and shot) where men could talk privately, to see his old friend Barret Bonden, with whom he had scarcely exchanged two words since the Ringle joined; and he looked at the young seamen who were also sitting there, playing draughts, with great displeasure.

'Bugger off, mates,' said Bonden to them, quite kindly, and they went at once, the authority of the Commodore's coxswain leaving them not a moment's choice.

'What cheer?' asked Killick, shaking Bonden's hand.

'All a-tanto,' replied Bonden, 'All a-tanto, thankee. But what's come over the barky?'

'You want to know what's come over the barky?'

'That's right, mate. Everything is changed. Anyone would think Old Nick was aboard, or Old Jarvey - wry looks, never a smile, officers nervous, people jumping to it like the day of doom or an admiral's inspection. She had not been really worked up, nor the people had not really shaken down when we left Pompey, but there were a power of old shipmates aboard, right seamen, and on the whole she was a happy ship. What has come over her?'

'Why,' said Killick, and he searched for a striking, even an epigrammatic reply; but eventually, giving up the attempt, he said 'It's not just the Purple Emperor and his right discontented ship - which she could not meet a Yankee brig-of-war and take her if the brig was anything like smart - nor it's not that old Stately with her parcel of pouffes aboard; though all that helps. No. It is domestic infelicity that done it. Domestic infelicity that has overflowed into the barky, an awkward barky in any case, whatever you may say, with so many dead ignorant green hands, a heap of miserable pressed men, and a first lieutenant too sick to do his duty. Domestic infelicity.'

'What do you mean, with your domestic infelicity?' asked Bonden in a stern voice.

'I mean that the Capt - the Commodore and Mrs A have parted brass rags. That's what.'

'God Almighty,' whispered Bonden, sinking back against the top-rim, for Killick's words carried complete conviction for the moment. But after a pause he said 'How do you know?'

'Well,' said Killick, 'you notice things. You can't help hearing things, and you put them together. No one can call me nosey...' Bonden made no comment.'... and no one can say I ain't got the Captain's best interests at heart.'

'That's right,' said Bonden.

'Well, while we was in the East Indies, and Botany bloody Bay, and Peru and so on, Mrs A looked after what we have here, at Ashgrove, in Hampshire, I mean; and she looked after the Woolcombe estate the Captain inherited from the General: which Mr Croft, Lawyer Croft, was not quite exactly in his intellects, being so ancient. And down there there is a family called Pengelley.'

'Pengelley. Yes, I remember them.'

'Now these Pengelleys had two farms on the estate, both held for his life by old Frank Pengelley: and the last time the Captain was ever in Dorset just before we set sail, old Pengelley told him he was worried about the lease if he should die before the ship came home - worried for his family, it being a lease for two lives and he being the second. His father's son, if you understand.' Bonden nodded. Leases for one, two or three lives were usual in his part of England too. 'Well, it seems that as the Captain was getting on his horse - that big flea-bitten grey, you remember? he said he would see the young Pengelleys right, by which old Frank understood his sons. But when old Frank died, which he did when we had not been gone a year, Mrs gave Weston Hay to his eldest boy William and Alton Hill, with all its sheepwalks, to young Frank, the old man's nephew and godson, leaving the other brother, Caleb, with nothing.'

'That Caleb was an idle drunken shiftless creature, no sort of a farmer. Though he had a pretty daughter.'

'Yes. But when we come home, it appeared that the Captain did mean sons when he said young Pengelleys, and he and Mrs had words about it. Many times and most severe. And about several other changes she had made: there were a lot of deaths down there in Dorset while we were away.' Killick hesitated, unable to see Bonden's expression in the darkness, but presently he went on. 'Yes, Caleb did have a pretty daughter, which her name was Nan: and Nan is a maid at Asbgrove. You know Ned Hart, as works in our garden?'

'Of course I do. Of course I do. We was shipmates. He lost a foot in the old Worcester.'

'Well, Ned and Nan want to marry. And if Caleb can get that there lease he says he will set them up. That is how I come to know so much: Nan tells Ned how Caleb goes to work, and Ned tells me, as someone that knows the Captain's mind.'

'Fair enough. But they would never part brass rags over a thing like that?'

'No. But one thing added to another and every time there was a disagreement, with hard words and ill-feeling. You remember Parson Hinksey?'

'The gentleman as courted Miss Sophie long ago, the cricketer?'

'Yes: well it turned out that it was Parson Hinksey as advised it - advised the lease and everything else, all the things they disagreed upon. He was over to Ashgrove at least every week all the time we were away, says Ned, and now he sat in the Captain's chair.'

'Oh,' said Bonden.

'Taken much notice of by Mother Williams and her tiemate; and by the children. Looked up to.'

Bonden nodded gloomily: an unpromising state of affairs.

'So there was words, and Parson Hinksey always being brought up. And Parson Hinksey calling very frequent. But that was nothing, nothing, against what happened when the Captain was in London and she went to dinner over to Barham, where Mrs Oakes looks after the poor Doctor's little natural.'

'She ain't a natural... She's as pretty a little maid as ever I see - talks away to Padeen in their language, and quite like a Christian to us. Laughs when the barky ships a sea, goes aloft on old Mould's shoulders, never seasick - loves the sea. We just run her and Mrs Oakes across to the Groyne in the tender. A dear little maid, and the Doctor is as happy as.. .' Before he could hit upon the very type of happiness Killick went on, 'Just what happened Nan could not tell, but it was to do with that there silk the Captain bought in Java and that we made Mrs Oakes's wedding dress out of.'

'I sewed its bodice,' said Bonden.

'Well, that only took part of the bolt and the rest was brought home as intended in the first place. So Mrs A wore it to this dinner where there was Parson Hinksey and some other gent: and when she came back she tore it off - said she would never wear such a rag again - and gave it to her maid, who showed Nan a piece - had never seen such lovely stuff, she said.'

'I do not know what to make of that,' said Bonden.

'Nor did I,' said Killick. 'Not until it all came down through Mrs A's particular maid Clapton and her friends down to Nan. But it seems that when the Captain came back a day or so after this dinner there was a letter waiting for him about the lease that vexed him, and he checked Mrs A with seeing too much of Parson Hinksey, of thinking more of his advice than her husband's, and perhaps he said something else, being carried away, like. Anyway, it was far, far more than she could bear and she went for him like a Tartar, right savage - calling out that if he could use her so, and accuse her so, while she was wearing his trull's leavings and being civil to her, she would be damned if she had anything more to do with him and she took off her ring and told him he might - no, she never said that: she tossed it out of window. But she might have said it, and worse: nobody ever thought she had so much spirit or fury in her, nor such a power of dragging him up and down, though with never a tear nor a foul word nor breaking things. Well, that was just before we sailed. He slept in the summerhouse the last few days and she in a dressing-room with a locked door; and there were no fond farewells at parting, though the children saw him to his boat and waved, and...