Patrick O'Brian: Desolation island

"Do you mean," asked his wife, taking no notice of his last remark, "that there are men to whom breaking the commandment does not signify?"

"I am got on to dangerous ground, I find," said Jack 'What I mean is . . . I know very well what I mean, but I am not clever at putting it into words. Stephen could explain it far better - could make it clear."

"I hope that neither Stephen nor any other man could make it clear to me that breaking marriage vows did not signify."

At this juncture a terrible animal appeared among the builders' rubble, a low dull-blue creature that might have been a pony if it had had any ears; it carried a small man on its back and a large square box. "Here is the hairdresser," cried Jack. "He is hellfire - he is extremely late. Your mother will have to be frizzed after the consultation: the doctors are due in ten minutes, and Sir James is as regular as a clock."

"The house on fire would not induce Mama to appear with her head undressed," said Sophie. "They will have to be shown the garden; and in any case Stephen will certainly be late."

"She could put on a cap," said Jack.

"Of course she will put on a cap," said Sophie, with a pitying look. "How could she possibly receive strange gentlemen without a cap? But her hair must be dressed under it."

The consultation for which these gentlemen were con

verging upon Ashgrove Cottage had to do with Mrs Williams's health. At an earlier period she had undergone an operation for the removal of a benign tumour with a fortitude that astonished Dr Maturin, accustomed though he was to the uncomplaining courage of his seamen; but since then her spirits had been much oppressed by vapours, and it was hoped that the high authorlty of these eminent physicians would persuade her to take the waters at Bath, at Matlock Wells, or even farther north.

Sir James had travelled in Dr Lettsome's chariot: they arrived together, and together they absolutely declined Captain Aubrey's suggestion of viewing the garden; so Jack, called away to receive the horsecoper and his new filly, left them with the decanter.

The physlclans had taken note of the new wings being added to Ashgrove Cottage, of the double coachhouse, the long line of stables, the gleaming observatory-dome on its tower at a distance: now their practised eyes assessed the evident wealth of the morning-room, its new and massive furniture, the pictures of ships and naval engagements by Pocock and other eminent hands, of Captain Aubrey himself by Beechey in the full-dress uniform of a senior post-captain, with the red ribbon of the Bath across his broad chest, looking cheerfully at a bursting mortarshell in which were to be seen the Aubrey arms with the honourable augmentation of two Moors' heads, proper - Jack had recently added Mauritius and La Reunion to his grateful sovereign's crown, and although the Heralds"

College had but a hazy notion of these possessions, they had felt that Moors would suit the case. The physicians looked about them as they sipped their wine, and with a visible satisfaction they gauged their fees.

"Allow me to pour you another glass, my dear colleague," said Sir James.

"You are very good," said Dr Lettsome. "It really is a most capital Madeira. The Captain has been fortunate in the article of prize-money, I believe?"

"They tell me that he recaptured two or three of our Indiamen at La Reunion."

"Where is La Reunion?"

"Why, it is what they used to call the Ile Bourbon - in the neighbourhood of the Mauritius, you know.,

"Ah? Indeed?"said Dr Lettsome; and they turned to the subject of their patient. The tonic effects of steel commended; the surprising side-effects of colchicum, when exhibited in heroic doses; valerian quite exploded; the great value of a pregnancy in these and indeed in almost all other cases; leeches behind the ears always worth a trial; lenitives considered, and their effect upon the spleen; hop-pillows; cold-sponging, with a pint of water on an empty stomach; low diet, black draughts; and Dr Lettsome mentioned his success with opium in certain not dissimilar cases. "The poppy,"he said, "can make a rose of a termagant.' He was pleased with his expression: in a louder, rounder voice he said, "Of a termagant, the poppy can make a rose.' But Sir James's face clouded over, and he replied, "Your poppy Is very well, in its proper place; but when I consider its abuse, the danger of habituation, the risk of the patient's becoming a mere slave, I am sometimes inclined to think that its proper place is the gardenplot. I know a very able man who did so abuse it, in the form of the tincture of laudanum, that he accustomed himself to a dose of no less than eighteen thousand drops a day - a decanter half the size of this. fie broke himself of the -habit; but in a recent crisis of his affairs he had

recourse to his balm once more, and although he was never as who should say opium-drunk, I am credibly informed that he was not sober either, not for a fortnight on end, and that - Oh, Dr Maturin, how do you do?" he cried as the door opened. "You know our colleague Lettsome, I believe?"

"Your servant, gentlemen," said Stephen. "I trust you have not been waiting on me?"

Not at all, they said; their patient was not yet ready for them; might they tempt Dr Maturin to a glass of this capital Madeira? They might, said Dr Maturin, and as he drank he observed that it was shocking how corpses had risen: he had been cheapening one that very morning, and the villains had had the face to ask him four guineas - the London price for a provincial cadaver! He had represented to them that their greed must stifle science, and with it their own trade, but in vain: four guineas he had had to pay. In fact he was quite pleased with it: one of the few female corpses he had seen with that curious quasicalcification of the palmar aponeuroses - fresh, too - but since it was only the hands that interested him at the moment, would either of his colleagues choose to go snacks?

"I am always happy to have a good fresh liver for my young men,"said Sir James. "We will stuff it into the boot.' With this he rose, for the door had opened, and Mrs Williams came in, together with a strong smell of singed hair.

The consultation ran its weary course, and Stephen, sitting a little apart, felt that the grave attentive physicians were earning their fee, however exorbitant it might prove. They both had a natural gift for the histrionic side of medicine, which he did not possess to any degree: he also wondered at the skill with which they managed the lady's flow. He wondered, too, that Mrs Williams should tell such lies, he being in the room: 'she was a homeless widow, and since her son-in-law's degradation she had been unwilling to appear in public.' She was not homeless. The mortgage on Mapes, her large and spreading house, had been paid off with the spoils of Mauritius; but she preferred letting it. tier son-in-law, when in command of a squadron in the Indian Ocean, had held the temporary post of commodore, and as soon as the campaign was over, as soon as the squadron was dispersed, he had in the natural course of events reverted to the rank of captain: there was no degradation. This had been explained to Mrs Williams time and again; she had certainly understood the simple facts; and it was no doubt a measure of the strong, stupid, domineering woman's craving for pity, if not approval, that she could now bring it all out again in his presence, knowing that he knew the falsity of her words. Yet in time even Mrs Williams's voice grew hoarse and Sir James's manner more authoritative; the imminence of dinner became unmistakable; Sophie popped in and out; and at last the consultation came to an end.

Stephen went out to fetch Jack from the stables, and they met half way, among the steaming heaps of time.

"Stephen! How very glad I am to see you," cried Jack, clapping both hands on Stephen's shoulders and looking down into his face with great affection. "How do you do?"