Patrick O'Brian: H.M.S. Surprise

when this cupboard door was open, one could not help hearing what was said in the small drawing-​room. But their immobility, their civil, surprised faces turned towards her, convinced Mrs Williams of her mistake and she said with a laugh, ‘A lady and gentleman sitting alone in the dark -it would never have done in my time, la! The gentlemen of the family would have called upon Dr Maturin for an explanation. Where is Cecilia? She ought to have been keeping you company. In the dark . . . but I dare say you were thinking of the candles, Sophie. Good girl. You would not credit, Doctor,’ she said, turning towards her guest with a polite look; for although Dr Maturin was scarcely to be compared with his friend Captain Aubrey, he was known to be the possessor of a marble bath and of a castle in Spain - a castle in Spain! - and he might very well do for her younger daughter: had Cecilia been sitting in the dark with Dr Maturin she would never have burst in. ‘You would not credit how candles have risen. No doubt Cecilia would have had the same idea. All my daughters have been brought up with a strict sense of economy, Dr Maturin; there is no waste in this house. However, if it had been Cecilia in the dark with a beau, that would never have done; the game would not have been worth the candle, ahem! No sir, you would never believe how wax has gone up since the beginning of the war. Sometimes I am tempted to turn to tallow; but poor though we are, I cannot bring myself to it - at least not in the public rooms. However, I have two candles burning in the library, and you shall have one: John need not light the sconces in here. I was obliged to have two, Dr Maturin, for I have been sitting with my man of business all this time - nearly all this time. The writings and the contracts and the settlements are so very long and complicated, and I am an infant in these matters.’ The infant’s estate ran far beyond the parish boundaries, and tenants’ babies as far away as Starveacre, on being told ‘Mrs Williams will come for you’, would fall mute with horror. ‘But Mr Wilbraham throws out some pretty severe reflections on us all for our dilatoriness, as he calls it, though I am sure it is not our fault, with Captain A so far away.’

She bustled away for the candle, pursing her mouth. These negotiations were drawing out in length, not from any petulance on the part of Mr Wilbraham, but because of Mrs Williams’s iron determination not to part with her daughter’s virginity or her ten thousand pounds until an ‘adequate provision’, a binding marriage-​settlement, had been signed, sealed, and above all, the hard cash delivered, it was this that was hanging fire so strangely:

Jack had agreed to all the conditions, however rapacious; he had tied up his property, pay, prospects and future prize-​money for the benefit of his widow and any offspring of this union for ever, in the most liberal way, as though he had been a pauper; but still the actual money did not appear, and not a step would Mrs Williams move until it was in her hands, not in promises, but in minted gold or its copper-​bottomed, Bank of England guaranteed equivalent.

‘There,’ she said, coming back and looking sharply at the log which Sophia had put on the fire. ‘One will be enough, will it not, unless you wish to read? But I dare say you still have plenty to talk about.’

‘Yes,’ said Sophia, when they were alone again. ‘There is something I should like to ask you. I have been meaning to draw you aside ever since you came. . . It is dreadful to be SO ignorant, and I would not have Captain Aubrey know it for the world; and I cannot ask my mother. But with you it is quite different.’

‘One may say anything at all to a medical man,’ said Stephen, and a look of professional, anonymous gravity came over his face, partly overlaying its look of strong personal affection.

‘A medical man?’ cried Sophia. ‘Oh, yes. Of course: certainly. But what I really meant, dear Stephen, was this war. It has been going on for ever now, apart from that short break. Going on for ever - and oh how I wish it would stop - for years and years, as long as I can remember; but I am afraid I have not always paid as much attention as I should. Of course, I do know it is the French who are so wicked; but there are all these people who keep coming and going - the Austrians, the Spaniards, the Russians. Pray, are the Russians a good thing now? it would be very shocking - treason no doubt

- to put the wrong people in my prayers. And there are all those Italians, and the poor dear Pope: and only the very day before he left, Jack mentioned Pappenburg -he had hoisted the flag of Pappenburg, by way of a ruse de guerre; so Pappenburg must be a country. I was despicably false, and only nodded, looking as wise as I could, and said, “Ah, Pappenburg.” I am so afraid he will think me ignorant: which of course I am, but I cannot bear him to know it. I am sure there are quantities of young women who know where Pappenburg is, and Batavia, and this Ligurian Republic; but we never did such places with Miss Blake. And this Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: I can find one on the map, but not the other. Stephen, pray tell me the present state of the world.’

‘Is it the state of the world, my dear?’ said Stephen, with a grin - no professional look left at all. ‘Well now, for the moment, it is plain enough. On our side we have Austria, Russia, Sweden and Naples, which is the same as your Two Sicilies; and on his he has a whole cloud of little states, and Bavaria and Holland and Spain. Not that these alliances are of much consequence one side or the other: The Russians were with us, and then against us until they strangled their Czar, and now with us; and I dare say they will change again, when the whim bites. The Austrians left the war in ‘97 and then again in the year one, after Hohenlinden: the same thing may happen again any day. What matters to us is Holland and Spain, for they have navies; and if ever this war is to be won, it must be won at sea. Bonaparte has about forty-​five ships of the line, and we have eighty-​odd, which sounds well enough. But ours are scattered all over the world and his are not. Then again the Spaniards have twenty-​seven, to say nothing of the Dutch; so it is essential to prevent them from combining, for if Bonaparte can assemble a superior force in the Channel, even for a little while, then his invasion army can come across, God forbid. That is why Jack and Lord Nelson are beating up and down off Toulon, bottling up Monsieur de Villeneuve with his eleven ships of the line and seven frigates, preventing them from combining with the Spaniards in Cartagena and Cadiz and Ferrol; and that is where I am going to join him

as soon as I have been to London to settle one or two little points of business and to buy a large quantity of madder. So if you have any messages, now is the time; for, Sophie, I am upon the wing.’ He stood up, scattering crumbs, and the clock on the black cabinet struck the hour.

‘Oh, Stephen, must you go?’ cried Sophie. ‘Let me brush you a little. Will you not stay supper? Pray, do stay supper - I will make you toasted cheese.’

‘I will not, my dear, though you are very kind,’ said Stephen, standing like a horse as she brushed at him, turned down his collar and twitched at his cravat - since his disappointment he had grown less nice about his linen; he had given up the practice of brushing his clothes or his boots, and neither his face nor his hands were particularly clean. ‘There is a meeting of the Entomological Society that I might just be able to attend, if I hurry. There, there, my dear, that will do: Mary and Joseph, I am not going to Court - the entomologists do not set up for beaux. Now give me a kiss, like a good creature, and tell me what I am to say - what messages I am to give to Jack.’