Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

Stephen had met Mr Wray, but on a somewhat unfortunate occasion, when Jack Aubrey had accused the gentleman, in only very slightly veiled terms, of cheating at cards: Wray had not seen fit to ask for the usual explanation - perhaps he considered the veil sufficiently obscure - and with Jack's long absence the affair had blown over. But this scarcely seemed the time to elaborate on the acquaintance, particularly as Stephen was aware that Sir Joseph had not the slightest interest in the matter; his bright, knowing eye was fixed upon the sailcloth parcel.

'These I acquired in Boston,' said Stephen, unwrapping it at last. 'On the first sheet you will find a succinct account of the manner in which they came into my possession, and on the next a summary of their contents. Most are only of local significance, and Major Beck in Halifax has already dealt with them; but I flatter myself that some are of wider, more general importance.'

Sir Joseph put on his spectacles and sat at the library table, the lamp by his side. 'My God,' he cried, after a moment, 'these are Johnson's private papers.'

'Just so,' said Stephen. He got up and stood with his back to the fire, his coat-tails hitched forward, so that his meagre hams should grow really warm, and he contemplated Sir Joseph, intent on his reading in that silent room, wholly concentrated in that disk of light, tearing the heart out of the matter with an almost shocking eagerness. There was not a sound but the turning of sheets, and an occasional low exclamation: 'Ah, the dog ...the cunning dog ..." After a while Stephen turned to the bookshelves: Malpighi, Swammerdam, Ray, Reaumur, Brisson, the most recent Frenchmen, including the elder Cuvier's latest essay, which he had not yet seen. He read the first chapters, sitting on the arm of his chair, and then moved over to Sir Joseph's cabinet to find the insect in question. Drawer after drawer filled with creatures, lovingly killed, pinned down and labelled: in the second drawer her saw that great rarity a true gynandromorph, a Clouded Yellow, male one side, female the other, and beneath its scientific name he read The Gift of my esteemed Friend Dr P. H. Those were the letters he had been using for departmental communications at the time he gave Blaine the butterfly: Sir Joseph was always prepared for the unexpected, and no one but himself could decipher the initials appended to so many of the specimens throughout the great collection, particularly to the more exotic beetles, some of which Stephen recognized as coming from Java, the Celebes, India, Ceylon, and Arabia Felix, no doubt the gift of far-flung agents, all as nameless to him as he was to them.

He found his insect, an ill-looking weevil, and returned to the text, tipping the book and the case so that they came within the rim of light. Sir Joseph read on.

Stephen was deep in Cuvier's argument; it was persuasive, it was elegantly put, yet somewhere there was a fallacy: he turned back two pages, keeping his finger on the weevil's rostrum, but the references to the illustration were obscure. The error might perhaps have become evident if he had not had a long day's travelling, and if part of his mind was not so taken up with Diana. It was an ill-regulated mind and if it were not carefully watched it would mourn Diana's death, or at least the death of his infinitely cherished myth; a dark, bitter, monotonous grieving. Yet the mourning was not pure - it no longer invaded him entirely, perhaps because often and often, in the most unexpected ways, the old myth and the new reality tended to coincide. Perhaps, he reflected, this had a certain relationship to marriage: they had been together a very long time and although they might essentially be strangers they were inextricably entwined. Diana Villiers: he stared into the declining fire, and Cuvier receded, faded, became infinitely remote.

Sir Joseph gave a sigh, bringing Stephen back into that pleasant room: he put the papers back into their folder and came round the table. 'Dear Maturin,' he said, shaking him by the hand, 'I am at a loss. I used all my superlatives when I wrote to you about the Leopard coup, and now I can only say them over again. You have done magnificently, sir, magnificently. Yet I shudder, yes upon my word I literally shudder, when I think of the risks you ran, to bring these papers away.' His praise ran on, handsome, generous and sincere; and then, 'You do not in principle object to suppers, my dear sir? There is a bottle I should like to share, to celebrate your return, a bottle in fact nata mecum consule Buteo, the last I possess. How I wish it may have survived.'

It had survived, a noble port, and as they drank it after their buttered eggs and deviled bones and Stilton cheese, Sir Joseph tapped the folder. 'Mr Johnson must be an unusually interesting man,' he observed. 'These records show his progress from the gifted amateur to the professional; a most strikingly rapid progress, as though he and his colleagues had condensed generations of experience into a few years. To be sure, he was overreached by the Frenchmen, but that might happen to anyone; and his network in Canada does him great credit. What kind of a man is he?'

'He is fairly young, and he has a superabundance of mental energy and animal spirits. I think he would be called a good-looking man; certainly he has easy, genteel, insinuating manners, and although in fact I believe that love of power is by far and away his strongest characteristic, he does not present anything of the unamiable outward appearance of an ambitious, dominating, masterful creature. He was born to a very considerable fortune; and he has strong natural parts. I do not pretend to say that there is a necessary relation of cause and effect, but he is exceedingly impatient of contradiction or of anything that thwarts him; and since he is a clever, remarkably tenacious and determined man, and one who can draw on great private wealth when secret funds are inadequate or delayed, he is a dangerous opponent. I am persuaded, for example, that he hired two privateers to waylay our packet: I am persuaded that he offered them a very great reward for seizing us. They lay in the path of the sloop bearing the original dispatches; they let it pass. Yet they pursued us with an inveteracy that can only be explained by the prospect of enormous gain. It is true that in this case Johnson had an unusually powerful motive.'

'Yes,' said Sir Joseph: but whether he meant that he thoroughly understood Johnson's motive or whether it was no more than an ordinary civil assent there was no telling. He filled their glasses, gazed at the candle through his wine, chuckled, and said, 'Such a coup, by God: such a coup ..."

'It was a lucky stroke,' said Stephen. 'That I will not deny: and although it was forced upon me by circumstances rather than by any real merit of my own, I am not sorry to finish my career with a success, however fortuitous.'

'Finish, Maturin?' cried Sir Joseph, in a startled voice. 'What can you mean by that?' Sir Joseph possessed all the qualities required to make an excellent chief of intelligence, but he had never had much sense of fun at any time, and his dismal, anxious trade had smothered what little there was in his original composition. He did not perceive that Stephen spoke with a certain levity, yielding to the temptation of rounding out a phrase, and he went on with great earnestness, 'Maturin, Maturin, how can you be so weak? In your remote exile you have been reading our bulletins and communiques, intended for neutral and above all for Russian opinion, and you have come to the conclusion that the war is virtually over, that because Wellington has overrun so much of Spain that Napoleon is defeated, and that because we hold your beloved Catalonia your occupation is gone. But I must tell you that Spain, particularly Mediterranean Spain and Catalonia, is very lightly held - a few battalions of invalids and Portuguese - and a French movement there, an incursion from the Roussillon behind Wellington's right flank, would cut his immensely extended lines of communication. No, no: even there the situation is perilous to a degree, to say nothing of the north. Wellington has to be supplied by sea- command of the sea is the absolutely crucial point - and consider our Channel squadron alone: here is Lord Keith's latest statement. The enemy has twelve sail of the line besides the Jemmapes in perfect readiness for sea and fifteen frigates - fifteen, Maturin - besides smaller vessels; and the force at present under my orders numbers fourteen of the line, eight frigates, six sloops, two gunbrigs, one schooner and two hired cutters, eleven either in port or on their way to refit. A third of them useless, the French all ready for action; and it is the same with all the other squadrons. As you see, a successful sortie by the French would leave Wellington hanging in the air, and completely change the face of the war: even as it is we have continual complaints from him about naval protection and supplies. No, no: I do assure you, Maturin, the war is in its most dangerous stage. We are at our last throw; we have no reserves left; and if Napoleon achieves a victory by land or sea I doubt we can ever recover it. You have been away a great while and perhaps you cannot fully appreciate the immense decline in this country's resources since you left. Taxes are as high as they can possibly be, perhaps even higher, and yet the money does not come in: we can scarcely fit out the fleet. Government's credit is very low. You could paper your room with Treasury bills, the discount on them is so shockingly great. Trade is almost at a standstill; gold is not to be had - paper money everywhere - and the City is deeply depressed. The City is morose, Maturin, morose!'