Patrick O'Brian: Post captain

‘Every speech of his is said to be worth five votes to the other side; and he makes a surprising number of them. He has a tendency to address the House on subjects he does not quite understand.’

‘It would be difficult for him to do otherwise, unless the Commons were to discuss the strategy of a fox-​chase.’

‘Exactly so. And naval affairs are his chief delight, alas. If there should be even a partial change of administration, his son is likely to be looked upon with a jaundiced eye.’

‘You confirm all that I had supposed, Sir Joseph. I am obliged to you.’

They returned to their butterflies, to beetles - Sir Joseph had not attended to beetles as much as he could have wished - to a discussion of Cimarosa - an excellent performance of Le Astuzie Feminili at. Covent Garden -Sir Joseph adjured Dr Maturin to hear it - he himself had heard it twice and would be going a third time tonight - charming, charming - but his eye kept wandering to a severe, accurate clock, and his defence of Cimarosa, though earnest, occupied no more than a quarter of his mind.

The aged clerk returned, ten years younger, skipping with excitement, handed a note, and darted out.

‘We act!’ cried Sir Joseph, ringing a number of bells. ‘Now I must find the ships. Mr Akers, files A12 and 27 and the current dockets. Mr Roberts, copying-​clerks and messengers to stand by. Dr Maturin, Lord Melville’s compliments, his very particular compliments, and he begs the favour of a word with you at twenty minutes past eleven precisely. Now, my dear sir, will you accompany the squadron? A negotiation might prove possible; it would be better by far than the main forte.’

‘I will. But I must not appear. It would destroy my value as an agent. Give me a gentleman who speaks Spanish, and I will speak through him. And may I say this? To deal with Bustamente you must send a powerful squadron - ships of the line - to allow him to yield with honour. An overwhelming force, or he will fight like a lion. These are frigates in high training, and, for Spain, high discipline: ships to be reckoned with.’

‘I will attend to what you say, Dr Maturin. With the disposition of our fleets I promise nothing. Have you any further counsels or observations - one moment, Mr Robinson - or remarks?’

‘Yes, sir. I have a. request to make - I have a favour to beg. As you are aware, I have accepted nothing, at any time, for what services I may have been able to perform, in spite of the Admiralty’s very obliging insistence.’

Sir Joseph looked grave, but said he was sure that any request from Dr Maturin would receive the most sympathetic attention.

‘My request is, that Captain Aubrey, in the Lively, should form part of the squadron.’

Sir Joseph’s face cleared wonderfully. ‘Certainly: I think I may promise that on my own responsibility,’ he said. ‘I believe Lord Melville would wish it: it may be the last thing he can do for his young friend. But is that all, sir? Surely, that cannot be all?’

‘That is all, sir. You oblige me most extremely: I am deeply obliged to you, Sir Joseph.’

‘Lord, Lord,’ cried Sir Joseph, waving away the obligation with a file. ‘Let me see: she has a surgeon, of course. I cannot in decency supersede him - besides, that would not answer. You must have a temporary rank - you shall go in her with a temporary rank, and join early in the morning. The full instructions will take some time to draw up - the Board must sit - but they will be ready by this evening, and you can go down with the Admiralty messenger. You will not object to travelling in the darkness?’

The rain was no more than a drizzle by the time Stephen came out into the park, but it was enough to prevent him from wandering among the bookstalls of Wych Street as he had intended, and he returned to the Grapes. There he sat in a high leather chair, staring at the fire, his mind ranging in many, many directions or sometimes merely turning on itself in a comfortable lethargy, until the grey daylight faded into a dim, unemphatic night, foggy and suffused with orange from the lamps outside. The coming of an Admiralty messenger aroused him from his delicious sense of inhabiting a body with indefinite, woollen bounds, and he realized that he had not eaten since his biscuit and madeira with Lord Melville.

He called for tea and crumpets, a large number of crumpets, and with candles lit on the table by his side, he read what the messenger had brought: a friendly note from Sir Joseph, confirming that the Lively should be sent and observing ‘that in compliment to Dr Maturin he had given orders that the temporary commission should be modelled as closely as possible upon that granted to Sir J. Banks, of the Royal Society’, which he hoped might give pleasure; the commission itself, an imposing document, entirely handwritten because of the rarity of its form, with Melville’s signature smudged with haste; an official letter requesting and directing him to proceed to the Nore to join his ship forthwith; a later note from Sir Joseph to say that the instructions could not be ready until after midnight, begging his pardon for the delay, and enclosing a ticket for Le Astuzie Feminili - it might help Dr Maturin to pass the hours agreeably, and persuade him to do justice to Cimarosa, ‘that amiable phoenix’.

Sir Joseph was a wealthy man, a bachelor; he liked to do himself well; and the ticket was for a box, a small box high on the left-​hand side of the house. It gave a better view of the audience and the band than the stage, but Stephen settled into it with a certain complacency; he leant his hands, still greasy from the crumpets, upon the padded edge and looked down at the groundlings - his fellows on almost every other occasion - with some degree of spiritual as well as physical loftiness. The house was filling rapidly, for the opera was much talked of, much in fashion, and although the royal box away on his right was empty, nearly all the others had people in them, moving about, arranging chairs, staring at the audience, waving to friends; and immediately opposite him there was a group of naval officers, two of whom he knew. Beneath him, in the pit, he recognized Macdonald with his empty sleeve pinned across his coat, sitting next to a man who must surely be his twin brother, they were so alike. There were other faces he knew: all London that attended to music seemed to be there, and some thousands that did not - an animated scene, a fine buzz of conversation, the sparkle of jewels; and now that most of the audience was thoroughly settled, the waving of fans.

The house darkened and the first notes of the overture quelled the greater part of the talk, muting the rest. Stephen turned his eyes and his attention to the band.

Poor thin pompous overblown stuff, he thought; not unpleasant, but quite trivial. What was Sir Joseph thinking of, to compare this man with Mozart? He admired the red-​faced ‘cellist’s bowing, however - agile, determined, brisk. To his right a flash of brightness drew his eye: a party of latecomers walking into their box and letting in the light from the door at the back. Goths: Moorish barbarity. Not, indeed, that the music had much to say: not that his attention had been wrenched painfully from something that required close concentration. Though it would have been all one to those grass-​combing Huns, had it been Orpheus in person.

A charming harp came up through the strings, two harps running up and down, an amiable warbling. Signifying nothing, sure; but how pleasant to hear them. Pleasant, oh certainly it was pleasant, just as it had been pleasant to hear Molter’s trumpet; so why was his heart oppressed, filled with an anxious foreboding, a dread of something imminent that he could not define? That arch girl posturing upon the stage had a sweet, true little voice; she was as pretty as God and art could make her; and he took no pleasure in it. His hands were sweating.