Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

He was easily wounded, and only a little while ago Sophie had had a difficult time with the representatives of the committee of West India merchants who had talked to her about their present or rather about the arms and the inscriptions that were to be engraved upon it, for the plate was already there in Storr's workshop. She had begged them to omit 'late of the Royal Navy' and 'formerly His Majesty's ship' and the repeated mentions of the word privateer; but the gentlemen had been so pleased with their own composition and so strongly inclined to think it could not be improved upon that she doubted there would be any change.

A party of seamen padded past the window on their way to deal with the drawing-room in the naval fashion; that is to say, to strip it to the boards, scrub and polish everything in sight and then refurnish it completely, chairs, tables and bookcases all exactly squared. Since in the ordinary course of events they did this daily to their captain's quarters at sea, it seemed to them natural that they should do the same by his house on shore; and since the end of their week's leave of solid debauchery in Shelmerston they had repainted all the woodwork at Ashgrove as well as whitening all the stones bordering the drive and the paths in the garden.

They had hardly gone by before a blackbird began to sing from a tree on the far side of the lawn. He was a great way off, but with all its inconveniencies the cottage did have the merit of being a reasonably quiet place and he could be heard in all his glorious purity. 'How I wish I could sing like that,' murmured Jack, rapt in admiration.

'My dearest love,' said Sophie, pressing his hand, 'you sing far, far better.'

The bird stopped in mid-phrase and a hooting and bawling of children could be heard approaching.

'Oh do come on, George, you fat-arsed little swab. Bear a hand, bear a hand there, can't you?' called Charlotte.

'I'm a-coming, ain't I? And you are to wait for me," cried George, quite faint in the distance.

'Charlotte, you are not to roar out like that so near the house. It ain't genteel and besides they'll hear you,' said Fanny, also in a close-reefed topsail screech. An outsider might have found their conversation coarse and aggressive as well as horribly loud; but they had been brought up largely by the seamen who replaced ordinary servants at Ashgrove, and they usually talked lower-deck when they were at liberty. Their abuse was almost always entirely conventional and they were in fact much attached to one another, which was obvious when they appeared at the window, each girl having her little brother by the hand and all three leaping up and down with delight.

'It's come, it's come,' they cried, but not quite together: a discordant noise.

'It's come, sir. It's come, ma'am,' cried Killick, flinging the door wide open. He performed what he conceived to be a butler's duties at Ashgrove; and in his view butlers were perfectly entitled to grin and jerk their thumbs over their shoulders. 'Which it's in a covered cart with two coves with blunderbusses as well as the driver in the stable-yard, sir. There was a gent in charge, to make an address, but he got pissed pardon me overtook in liquor at Godalming, so they come on alone. The address is wrote on paper, any gate, so you can read it yourself. They ask do you choose to have the crates carried in, sir?'

'No,' said Jack. 'Take them into the kitchen - but they are to unload their blunderbusses before setting foot in the house - and give them beer and bread and cheese and ham and pork pie. And you and Bonden bring in the crates, with a screw-driver and a small crow.'

The crates came, escorted by children crying 'Oh Papa may we open them now?' from as far as the kitchen passage.

'George,' said his father, surveying the trim sealed and banded chests, with J, Aubrey, Ashgrove Cottage, Hants, Esquire HANDLE WITH GREAT CARE painted on the top, 'Jump up to your grandmother's room like a good fellow, and tell her there is something come from London."

Before Mrs Williams could change into a suitable garment, arrange her hair and negotiate the staircase, the lid of the first chest had come off, and an extraordinary amount of straw and wood-shavings had invaded three quarters of the room; she cried out in horror, her powerful voice filling the breakfast-parlour. But Jack Aubrey had reached the layers of tissue-paper that concealed the heart of the matter and his hands were searching for a joint in the close-packed parcels. Sophie watched him with dread in her heart as he heaved at a bulky object in the middle, gently prised it free, unveiled its brilliant form - a soup tureen - and in a tone that quite drowned Mrs Williams' indignation he said 'Wait a moment, ma'am," and passed it to his wife. The tureen, an ornate affair in the modern style, was so heavy that she nearly dropped it; but seizing the other handle she checked its downward swoop, and even before she had steadied it she saw that the inscription was as she had wished it to be ... She read it out: To the most eminently distinguished naval commander, John Aubrey, esquire, this service is offered by the Association of West India Merchants in gratitude for his unfailing support and protection of the country's Trade (its life's blood) in all latitudes and in both wars, and in particular acknowledgment of his brilliant capture of that most determined and rapacious private man-of-war the Spartan, the largest of its class. Beneath this piece stood the words Debellare superbos, with two lions rampant pointing at them from either side.

'Very well put," cried Mrs Williams. '"Life's blood" is very well put. I congratulate you, Mr Aubrey." She shook his hand with real cordiality; and taking the tureen from her daughter, she observed, 'It must weigh a hundred and fifty ounces."

'Oh sir," cried Charlotte, standing on tiptoe and peering into the chest, 'I believe there is another just the same. Please, please may I bring it out?"

'Do, by all means, my dear,' said Jack.

'It is far too heavy and delicate for a child,' said Mrs Williams, eagerly pushing forward and raising the next tureen. 'But she shall have the cover, which I see lies next.'

'May I have a go too, Papa?" whispered Fanny, pulling his sleeve.

Common justice required that she should, and presently the unpacking turned into a kind of lucky dip, each fishing in strict turn and calling or even shrieking out the name of the catch - sauce tureen, small ladle, large ladle, side-dish, cover, a monstrous epergne and so down to the scores of plates, -big and little - until the tables overflowed and there was nowhere to tread without crushing straw or shavings into the carpet, to say nothing of tissue paper and jeweller's cotton, and the place looked like an idealized bandito's lair; for the West India merchants had done the thing handsomely, very handsomely.

'You will have to take on a mate or two in the polishing line,' said Jack to Killick, who was gazing round with a kind of imbecile rapture at the number of surfaces that he might now attack with powdered chalk and shammy leather: like many seamen he had a passion for making metal shine, and he had already reduced Jack's earliest silver plates to something not far removed from foil.

'Now everything must be washed in hot water and soap, because of the children's dirty hands,' said Mrs Williams, 'and when it is thoroughly dry it must be wrapped in baize and locked up in the strong-room. It is far too good for use.'

'Charlotte,' said Jack. 'Here is a spoon for you, for your own; and here is one for Fanny.'

'Oh thank you, sir,' they cried, courtseying and blushing with pleasure: they were twins, and the perfect unison of their cry, expression, movement and blush was particularly absurd and touching.

'And here's for thee, George. You will need one when you join your first ship.'