Patrick O'Brian: The Letter of Marque

They spoke at some length about the night-ape, the capy-bara, the bearded marmoset; Ulrika and the Lapp brought coffee: and in a pause Stephen said, 'Jack, are you alongside that elegant quay in the old town?'

'Yes, moored head and stern to bollards; and she is already turned round.'

'Would it be convenient if we came aboard tonight?'

'I should like it of all things,' said Jack. 'I do not trust this breeze to hold for another twenty-four hours.'

'Can you indeed travel with a broken leg?' asked Jagiello.

'Mersennius said I certainly might, if I went to the ship in a coach. Jagiello, would you be so kind?'

'Of course, of course. We will carry you downstairs on a door taken off its hinges, and prop you up inside, with Mr Martin to hold you. I shall drive at a very gentle trot, and you shall have a colonel's escort from my regiment.'

'Diana, my dear, does that suit you at all? Or would you sooner have another day or two to pack?'

'Give me a couple of hours,' said Diana with shining eyes, 'and I am your man. Gentlemen, do not stir, I beg, but finish your coffee. I will send Pishan up with some sandwiches.'

Presently the gentlemen did stir, however; or at least Aubrey and Jagiello went off to see whether a door Jagiello remembered in his grandmother's barn would answer, and whether one of her remaining maids might not bear a hand in the packing.

'Surely I hear Bonden below,' said Stephen when he and Martin were alone. 'Is Padeen here?'

'To tell you the truth,' said Martin, 'he is not. Unhappily we had a disagreement this morning, and Captain Pullings put him in irons. I do hate informing,' he went on, 'but without the least intention of catching him out I came upon him siphoning laudanum from one of the carboys and replacing the tincture with brandy...'

'Of course, of course, of course,' murmured Stephen. 'What a heavy simpleton I was never to have struck upon that.' And when Martin had finished his sad tale of Padeen's violence on having his bottle taken away from him he said 'I was very much to blame for leaving such things in his reach. We shall have to take the whole matter seriously in hand - we cannot turn him into the world a mere opium-eater.'

They mused for a while and Martin gave Stephen an account, a very long and detailed account, of their doings in Riga and of the manners of the Letts and their Russian masters. He had gone on to speak of the presumably Sclavonian grebes far out on the broad Dvina when Diana came in. She gave Stephen an extraordinarily violent shock, one that needed all his recovered strength and the leaves he was chewing to withstand, for she was wearing the green riding-habit of his dream. 'Stephen,' she said, her eyes brighter still, 'I have packed all I need for the time - a couple of trunks - the rest can follow by sea. The coach will be round in five minutes, with Countess Tessin's door. But I am not coming in it with you. You need a man to hold you, and with him and the door there is no room for me, so I am going to ride" - laughing with pure joy - 'I am going to fetch your things from the hotel and put flowers in our cabin.'

'My dear,' said Stephen, 'do you know an apothecary's shop near the hotel, with monsters in the window and a stuffed armadillo?'

'And the apothecary very small?'

'That is the place. Pray step in - have you someone to hold your horse?'

'The Lapp will go with me.'

'And buy all the coca leaves he has left; it is only the tail of a sack.'

'Stephen, you will have to give me some money.' And when he waved to his coat, 'You see, Mr Martin, what horse-leeches we wives do become.'

The Surprise lay, as Jack had said, moored head and stern against the quay. Her deck had a somewhat deserted look, for Tom Pullings and the purser were below, trying to disentangle the Riga merchants' accounts, and a fair number of men were on shore-leave until six.

West was the only officer on the quarterdeck, and it so happened that the party of hands making dolphins and paunch-mats on the forecastle were all Shelmerstonians. West was gaping rather vacantly over the taffrail when he saw an extraordinarily handsome woman ride along the quay, followed by a groom. She dismounted at the height of the ship, gave the groom her reins, and darted straight across the brow and so below.

'Hey there,' he cried, hurrying after her, 'this is Dr Maturin's cabin. Who are you, ma'am?'

'I am his wife, sir,' she said, 'and I beg you will desire the carpenter to sling a cot for me here.' She pointed, and then bending and peering out of the scuttle she cried 'Here they are. Pray let people stand by to help him aboard: he will be lying on a door.' She urged West out of the cabin and on deck, and there he and the amazed foremast hands saw a blue and gold coach and four, escorted by a troop of cavalry in mauve coats with silver facings, driving slowly along the quay with their captain and a Swedish officer on the box, their surgeon and his mate leaning out of the windows, and all of them, now joined by the lady on deck, singing Ah tutti contend saremo cost, ah tutti contenti saremo, saremo cosi with surprisingly melodious full-throated happiness.

THE END