Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

Stephen watched them for a while as they went through the grave gestures of consultation, part of the gravity being directed at the audience, part at one another; but he was too familiar with this kind of meeting for it to have much interest and presently his attention shifted to his surroundings, and to Diana and Jagiello. The intuition peculiar to dreams told him that this was Diana's room, that this was her bed itself, and that she spent her time on the chaise-longue beside it, looking after him with the utmost tenderness. He also knew that Jagiello had called in the king's physician, the person with the star, who was now saying that when he came to the point of eating solids, the patient should be allowed no beef or mutton, still less any swine's flesh, but rather a hazel-hen, seethed with a very little barley.

'Hazel-hen,' he thought. 'Never have I seen a hazel-hen; yet if this good man's advice is followed I shall soon incorporate one. I shall be in part a hazel-hen with whatever virtues a hazel-hen may possess.' He reflected upon Finn Mac Coul and his salmon and while he was reflecting there in the twilight, lamps were lit; he was reflecting still when they were put out, all but a single one turned low; and now the chief light in the room came from a fire away on his right hand, a live flickering glow on the ceiling. There had no doubt been discreet farewells, and someone had surely prescribed; but now Diana was alone, sitting on the chaise-longue beside the bed. She laid her hand on the back of his and said very quietly 'Oh Stephen, Stephen, how I wish you could hear me, my dear."

But now there was this evil balloon again, and now he was living with time in the sense of duration once more, for he knew with dreadful certainty that they had been rising for hours on end, that they were now rising faster still. And as they soared towards this absolute purity of sky so its imminent threat, half-perceived at first, filled him with a horror beyond anything he had known. Diana was wearing her green coat again and at some point she must have turned up the collar, for now its red underneath made a shocking contrast with the extreme pallor of her face, the pinched white of her nose and the frosted blue of her lips. Her face showed no expression -she was, as it were, completely alone - and as she had done before she held her head down, bowed over her lap, where her hands, now more loosely clasped, held the diamond, very like a sliver of this brilliant sky itself.

She was breathing still, but only just, as they floated away, always higher and into even more rarefied air; breathing, but only just - a very slight movement indeed. Then even that stopped; her senses were going, going; her head drooped forward, the diamond fell; and he started up, crying 'No, no, no,' in the extremity of passionate refusal.

'Quiet, Stephen,' she said, taking him in her arms and easing him back in bed. 'Easy, there,' as though she were talking to a horse; and then, as though she were talking to a man, 'You must take care of your poor leg, my dear.'

He leant on her warmth, slipping back through several realities to this, though without much certainty of its existence. Yet his certainty grew stronger as he lay there through the night, watching the glow of the fire and hearing a clock strike the hours; and sometimes she moved about, putting on more wood, or attending to his squalid needs, and doing so with an efficiency and a tenderness that moved him very deeply: and in these short exchanges his words were relevant and intelligible.

They had known one another these many years, but their relations had never called for tenderness on her side and he would have said that it formed no part of her character: courage, spirit and determination, yes, but nothing nearer tenderness than generosity and good nature. He was weak, having been much battered in his physical and metaphysical fall and having eaten nothing since, weak and somewhat maudlin, and reflecting upon this new dimension he wept silently in the darkness.

In the morning he heard her stir and said 'Diana, joy, are you awake?'

She came over, looked into his face, kissed him and said 'You are in your right wits still, sweetheart, thanks be. I was so afraid you would slip back into your nightmares about the balloon.'

'Did I talk a great deal?'

'Yes you did, my poor lamb - there was no comforting you - it was oh so distressing. And oh so long.'

'Hours, was it?'

'Days, Stephen.'

He considered this, and the violent stabs of pain in his leg. 'Listen,' he said, 'would there be any coffee in the house? And a piece of biscuit, maybe? I raven. And tell, did the bottle in my pocket survive?'

'No. It broke. It nearly killed you - a most frightful gash in your side.'

When she had gone he looked at his leg, deep in plaster according to the Basra method, and under the bandage round his belly. The broken glass must have gone very near the peritoneum. 'Were I in a still weaker state I should look upon that as an omen, an awful warning," he said.

They had finished their breakfast and they were talking companionably when Dr Mersennius, the most intelligent of the medical men, came to ask how the patient did and to dress his wound. Stephen mentioned the pain in his leg.

'I trust you will not ask me to prescribe laudanum, colleague,' said Mersennius, looking him in the eye. 'I have known cases where a few minims, taken after a very massive dose, accidental or otherwise, have caused extreme and lasting mental distress, allied to that which you have just suffered but more durable, leading on occasion to lunacy and death.'

'Have you any reason to suppose that I had taken laudanum?'

'Your pupils, of course; and the apothecary's label was still on the broken glass. A wise physician would no more add a drop of laudanum to an already overcharged body than a gunner would take a naked light into a powder-magazine."

'Many medical men use the tincture against pain and emotional disturbance.'

'Certainly. But in this case I am persuaded that we should be well advised to bear the pain and deal with the agitation by exhibiting a moderate dose of hellebore.'

Stephen felt inclined to congratulate Mersennius on his fortitude, but he did not and they parted on civil terms. Within the limits of his information Mersennius was right; he obviously thought that his patient was addicted to laudanum, and he had no means of knowing, as Stephen knew, that this frequent and indeed habitual use was not true addiction, but just the right side of it. The boundary was difficult to define and he did not blame Mersennius for his mistake, the less so as his body was at this moment feeling more than a hint of that craving which was the mark of a man who had gone too far. Yet the present unsteady emotional state must be taken in hand. The pain he could bear, but he would never forgive himself if he were to weep at Diana or behave weakly.

Diana came back. 'He is so pleased with you, and with your wound,' she said. 'But he says I am not to give you any laudanum.'

'I know. He thinks it might do harm in this case: he may be right.'

'And Jagiello asks whether you would like his man to come and shave you, and then whether you would feel strong enough to see him.'

'Should be very happy; how kind in Jagiello. Diana, my dear, please may I have that little parcel I brought with me?'

'The leaves that make you feel clever and witty? Stephen, are you quite sure they will not do you any harm?"

'Never in life, my dearest soul. The Peruvians and their neighbours chew coca day and night; it is as usual as tobacco."

By the time Jagiello's valet had shaved him, Stephen's mouth was already tingling pleasantly from his quid of coca; by the time Jagiello had paid him a short but most cordial visit, the leaves had entirely taken away his sense of taste - a small price to pay for the calming and strengthening of his mind. The loss of taste could hardly have come at a better moment, for after Stephen had been contemplating the coca's undoubted action on his leg for some time, Diana brought a bottle of physic, sent by Mersennius - a spectacularly disagreeable emulsion.