Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

‘You would not say that if you saw him taking his ship into action.’

‘I mean in his relations with women. He is sentimental. But still, he would do. Shall I tell you something that will really shock you, although you are a medical man? I was married, you know - I am not a girl - and intrigues were as common in India as they are in Paris. There are times when I am tempted to play the fool, terribly tempted. I dare say I should, too, if I lived in London and not in this dreary hole.’

‘Tell me, have you reason to suppose that Jack is to your way of thinking?’

‘About our suitability? Yes. There are signs that mean a lot to a woman. I wonder he ever looked seriously at Sophie. He is not interested, I suppose? Her fortune would not mean a great deal to him? Have you known him long? But I suppose all you naval people have known one another, or of one another, for ever.’

‘Oh, I am no seaman, at all. I first met him in Minorca, in the year one, in the spring of the year one. I had taken a patient there, for the Mediterranean climate - he died- and I met Jack at a concert. We took a liking to one another, and he asked me to sail with him as his surgeon. I agreed, being quite penniless at the time, and we have been together ever since. I know him well enough to say that as for being interested, concerned for a woman’s fortune, there never was a man more unworldly than Jack Aubrey. Maybe I will tell you a thing about him.’

‘Go on, Stephen.’

‘Some time ago he had an unhappy affair with another officer’s wife. She had the dash, the style and the courage he loves, but she was a hard, false woman, and she wounded him very deeply. So virginal modesty, rectitude, principle, you know? have a greater charm for him than they might otherwise have had.’

‘Ah? Yes, I see. I see now. And you have a béguin for her too? It is no use, I warn you. She would never do a thing without her mother’s consent, and that is nothing to do with her mother’s being in control of her fortune: it is all duty. And you would never bring my aunt Williams round in a thousand years. Still, you may feel on Sophie’s side.’

‘I have the greatest liking and admiration for her.’

‘But no tendre?’

‘Not as you would define it. But I am averse to giving pain, Villiers, which you are not.’

She stood up, as straight as a wand. ‘We must go in. I have to dance this next bout with Captain Aubrey,’ she said, kissing him. ‘I am truly sorry if I hurt you, Maturin.’

For many years Stephen Maturin had kept a diary in a crabbed and characteristically secret shorthand of his own. It was scattered with anatomical drawings, descriptions of plants, birds, moving creatures, and if it had been deciphered the scientific part would have been found to be in Latin; but the personal observations were all in Catalan, the language he had spoken most of his youth. The most recent entries were in that tongue.

‘February 15. .. then when she suddenly kissed me, the strength left my knees, quite ludicrously, and I could scarcely follow her into the ball-​room with any countenance. I had sworn to allow no such thing again, no strong dolorous emotion ever again: my whole conduct of late proves how I lie. I have done everything in my power to get my heart under the harrow.

‘February 21. I reflect upon Jack Aubrey. How helpless a man is, against direct attack by a woman. As soon as she leaves the schoolroom a girl learns to fend off, ward off wild love; it becomes second nature; it offends no code; it is commended not only by the world but even by those very men who are thus repulsed. How different for a man! He has no such accumulated depth of armour; and the more delicate, the more gallant, the more “honourable” he is the less he is able to withstand even a remote advance. He must not wound: and in this case there is little inclination to wound.

‘When a face you have never seen without pleasure, that has never looked at you without a spontaneous smile, remains cold, unmoving, even inimical, at your approach, you are strangely cast down: you see another being and you are another being yourself. Yet life with Mrs W can be no party of pleasure; and magnanimity calls for understanding. For the moment it calls in vain. There are depths of barbarity, possibilities I did not suspect. Plain common sense calls for a disengagement.

‘JA is uneasy, discontented with himself, discontented with Sophia’s reluctance - coyness is no word to use for that dear sweet pure affectionate young woman’s hesitation. Speaks of wincing fillies and their nonsense: he has never been able to bear frustration. This in part is what Diana Villiers means by his immaturity. If he did but know it the evident mutual liking between him and DV is in fact good for his suit. Sophia is perhaps the most respectable girl I have known, but she is after all a woman. JA is not percipient in these matters. Yet on the other hand he is beginning to look at me with some doubt. This is the first time there has been any reserve in our friendship; it is painful to me and I believe to him. I cannot bring myself to look upon him with anything but affection; but when I think of the possibilities, the physical possibilities I say, why then -’DV insists upon my inviting her to Melbury to play billiards: she plays well, of course - can give either of us twenty in a hundred. Her insistence is accompanied by an ignoble bullying and an ignoble pretty pretty cajolery, to which I yield, both of us knowing exactly what we are about. This talk of friendship deceives neither of us; and yet it does exist, even on her side, I believe. My position would be the most humiliating in the world but for the fact that she is not so clever as she thinks: her theory is excellent, but she has not the control of her pride or her other passions to carry it into effect. She is cynical, but not nearly cynical enough, whatever she may say. If she were, I should not be obsessed. Quo me rapis? Quo indeed. My whole conduct, meekness, mansuetude, voluntary abasement, astonishes me.

‘Quaere: is the passionate intensity of my feeling for Catalan independence the cause of my virile resurrection or its effect? There is a direct relationship, I am sure. Bartolomeu’s report should reach England in three days if the wind holds.’

‘Stephen, Stephen, Stephen!’ Jack’s voice came along the corridor, growing louder and ending in a roar as he thrust his head into the room. ‘Oh, there you are. I was afraid you had gone off to your stoats again. The carrier has brought you an ape.’

‘What sort of an ape?’ asked Stephen.

‘A damned ill-​conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-​house on the road, and it is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington.’

‘Then it is Dr Lloyd’s lewd mangabey. He believes it to be suffering from the furor uterinus, and we are to open it together when I return.’

Jack looked at his watch. ‘What do you say to a hand of cards before we go?’

‘With all my heart.’

Piquet was their game. The cards flew fast, shuffled, cut, and dealt again: they had played together so long that each knew the other’s style through and through. Jack’s was a cunning alternation of risking everything for the triumphant point of eight, and of a steady, orthodox defence, fighting for every last trick. Stephen’s was based upon Hoyle, Laplace, the theory of probabilities, and his knowledge of Jack’s character.

‘A point of five,’ said Jack.

‘Not good.’

‘A quart.’

‘To what?’

‘The knave.’

‘Not good.’

‘Three queens.’

‘Not good.’

They played. ‘The rest are mine,’ said Stephen, as the singleton king fell to his ace. ‘Ten for cards, and capot. We must stop. Five guineas, if you please; you shall have your revenge in London.’