Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

Charlotte, feeling that the silence which followed might be painful, said politely, 'Grandpapa was here the other day with Sir Francis Burdett, and he explained to us about the Westminster election and Wilkes and liberty. We have been voting for him ever since. Don't you wish he may get in?'

'Children, children,' said Sophie, 'you must change your shoes and wash your hands and faces. Fanny and Charlotte, put on clean pinafores. We are going to sit in the drawing-room.'

'Yes, Mama,' they cried, but at this moment the cart could be heard coming into the stable-yard and they rushed out in a body. A few seconds later they rushed back, cried 'It's true! There has been a famous victory! Shannon has taken Chesapeake! Huzzay, huzzay!' and vanished. They could be heard shouting barbarously, their piercing voices high above the men's deep rumble; and Jack noticed that in the yard they used the broad accent and the broader expressions of the lower deck. Fanny referred to Bonden as 'a goddam swab', but cheerfully, without the least injurious intent; and Charlotte was heard to say that 'although Worlidge was as drunk as Davy's sow, any crew of grass-combing b-s could have harnessed the pony better than that.' True enough: of the four men that made up the household at Ashgrove Cottage, three had been bred to the sea from childhood - they knew nothing of horses; and although the fourth, the weak-headed Worlidge, had been a farmer's boy before the press-gang caught him twenty years ago, he was lying speechless in the bottom of the cart, incapable of moving a finger since before they started back. The others, faced with the mute, immobile, paralytic Worlidge and the loss of the collar had seized the pony to the shafts in a most seamanlike manner; there was not the least possibility of its coming adrift; but since the running bowline round the creature's neck choked it every time it advanced, they had been obliged to push the cart all the way from the Hand and Racquet, where they had celebrated the victory.

However, the exercise had sweated them sober, or at least sober enough to meet the not very exacting naval standards; and when Bonden (the strongest head of all) reported to the drawing-room for orders, his happiness owed little to dog's nose, flip, or raspberry shrub. He gave his captain joy of his return and joy of the victory, and listened with keen attention to Jack's account of the battle, following every move with total understanding. 'If it had not been for poor Captain Broke,' he said, 'it would have been perfect. I served under him in the old Druid, and he was a rare one for the great guns even then. Will he recover, sir?'

'I hope so, Bonden, I am sure,' said Jack, shaking his head at the recollection of that shocking wound. 'But the Doctor will be able to tell you better than I can. He may look in tomorrow, so let his room be priddied to the nines, in case he stays; and then just step round to Mr Kimber with my compliments, and I should be glad to see him early in the morning, before I set off.'

'Aye aye, sir,' said Bonden. 'The Doctor's room it is, and Mr Kimber to report immediately after breakfast.'

'Before you set off, my dear?' cried Sophie, the moment the door had closed behind him. 'But surely you do not have to go to the Admiralty at once? Surely the Admiral gave you leave?'

'Oh yes, he was most obliging - did everything that was proper - and he sent you his love. No: it is not the Admiralty I am worrying about, it is Louisa Broke. She must be told how her husband is as soon as possible, and if I travel up early tomorrow, I can take the Harwich Flyer there and back, and be home on Friday.'

'A letter, an express letter, would do just as well - you are so tired, dear Jack, and as thin as a rail -you must have some rest, and four and twenty hours in a stage-coach would quite knock you up, to say nothing of the ride to town - and anyhow as you told Bonden you cannot say anything about poor Brake's wound - an express letter, with every sort of good wish and comfort and Stephen's opinion - that would be far better in every way.'

'Sophie, Sophie,' he said, smiling at her: in her heart she was obliged to admit that in the service it was usual for men to travel great distances to comfort their shipmates' families, and that several times she had been most infinitely relieved by such kindness - only a few months ago the first lieutenant of the Java had come from Plymouth to assure her that she still possessed a husband; but even so she could not help rebelling against this sudden flying off. She muttered 'Louisa Broke' in a discontented, somewhat jealous tone, and several fresh reasons occurred to her: she did not utter them, however, for there was something in Jack's eye, the set of his head, that convinced her they would be useless, however sound; and presently their perfect happiness came back. They wandered into the garden to look at particularly valuable plants, above all those nearest the original cottage, those they had planted themselves. Neither had much genius in that line, nor indeed much taste, and the survivors (a small proportion) stood about in stark, unrelated clumps; but these flowers, such as they were, were peculiarly their own, and they loved them dearly. When she had to go in to attend to the children he went in with her, and she heard his strong, familiar step as he moved about the house. Presently he reached the music-room, and her piano, rarely used but fortunately retuned for the girls' lessons, gave out a great series of crashing chords, rising and rising with a splendid gaiety before they dropped to a deep, meditative thunder that merged quietly into a Hummel sonata that Jack often played and that she herself had learnt long ago. Then he took his fiddle, a fiddle far above his station, an Amati no less, bought from the spoils of the Indian Ocean, and played the same piece again, transposed for the violin. He did not play well; it was long since he had had a fiddle in his hands and in any case the fingers of his injured arm had not yet recovered all their nimbleness, but it would have been all one to Sophie if he had been Paganini - the house was alive again: it was fully inhabited. She had been right about Jack's immovable determination, however: he and Stephen stepped into their post-chaise immediately after dinner next day and bowled away as fast as four horses would draw them, lurching and rumbling over the side-road from Ashgrove Cottage.

'I should not really be travelling in this style,' observed Jack, when they reached the highway and conversation was possible again. 'The common coach is more my line; or even the waggon.'

'You refer to Kimber, I make no doubt?' said Stephen.

'Not exactly. Kimber did not choose to come: he was just leaving for Birmingham, he said. But he sent a gang of what he called new associates in our venture, and rum cullies they were, some of them. A couple of little attornies in dirty neck-cloths, who kept taking notes ..." 'Tell me, brother, are things very bad?' 'Well, the only thing that is clear is that Kimber has exceeded my instructions a thousand times over, with enormous workings, deep-shaft mining, and all sorts of machinery; and the association, as they call it, has taken interests in other concerns, including a navigation canal.' 'The canal alone was wanting,' said Stephen to himself. 'Now, apart from perpetual motion and the philosopher's stone, the picture is complete.'

'...and it is an odd thing,' continued Jack, 'on the one hand they say the losses and the debts are enormous - one fellow showed me a sum that was roughly twice what I possess, though he admitted it was only an estimate - and on the other they urge me to press on. Dig just a little deeper, they say, and turn a dead loss into a princely fortune. But in either case they want fresh money, or fresh security; and I saw one of the attorney coves looking round the room pricing the furniture. You would have admired me, Stephen: I was as cool as a judge, and I let them talk. They were importunate to know my holdings in Government stock - asked me straight out, God damn their impertinence - and the nature of my marriage settlements, and what was Sophie's fortune, and what was my father's estate. That was coming it a little high - they must have thought they had a fine pigeon to pluck, a fellow that had no notion of business and that could be persuaded or frightened into any kind of ruinous foolishness. But I cut them short, said I did not mean to put down another penny, and wished them good day. Lord, Stephen, there are advantages in growing older. Ten years ago, even five years ago, they would have ended in the horse-pond, and I should have had a suit for assault and battery on my hands, as well as all the rest.'