Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

‘I have come here for another purpose, my Lord. To drop my claim to post rank in the hope of another sloop. My prize-​agent has failed; two neutral owners have won their appeal against me; and I must have a ship.’

Lord St Vincent’s hearing was not good, and in this innermost shrine of the Navy Jack had lowered his voice; the old gentleman did not quite catch his meaning. ‘Must! What is this must?’ he cried. ‘Do commanders walk into the Admiralty nowadays and state that they must be given a ship? If you must be given a ship, sir, what the devil do you mean by parading Arundel with a cockade the size of a cabbage in your hat, at the head of Mr Babbington’s supporters, knocking honest freeholders about with a bludgeon? if I had been there, sir, I should have committed you for a brawl, disorderly conduct, and we should have none of this talk of must. God damn your impudence, sir.’

‘My Lord, I have expressed myself badly. With respect, my Lord, by that unhappy word I meant, that Jackson’s failure puts me in the obligation of soliciting your Lordship for a command, sinking my other claim. He has ruined me.’

‘Jackson? Yes. However,’ said St Vincent coldly, ‘if your own imprudence has lost you the fortune your command allowed you to win, you must not expect the Admiralty to feel responsible for finding you another. A fool and his money are soon parted, and in the end it is just as well. As for the neutrals, you know perfectly well, or you ought to know perfectly well, that it is a professional risk: you touch ‘em at your peril, and you must make proper provision against an appeal. But what do you do in the event? You fling your money about - ducks and drakes - you talk about marriage, although you know, or ought to know, that it is death to a sea-​officer’s career, at least until he is made post - you lead drunken parties at a Tory by-​election - you come here and say you must have a ship. And meanwhile your friends pepper us with letters to say that you must be made post. That was the very word the Duke of Kent thought fit to use, put up to it by Lady Keith. It was not an action that entitled you to post rank. What is all this talk about “giving up your claim”? There is no claim.’

‘The Cacafuego was a thirty-​two gun xebec-​frigate, my Lord.’

‘She was a privateer, sir.’

‘Only by a damned lawyer’s quibble,’ said Jack, his voice rising.

‘What the fucking hell is this language to me, sir? Do you know who you are talking to, sir? Do you know where you are?’

‘I beg your pardon, my Lord.’

‘You took a privateer commanded by God knows who, with a well-​manned King’s sloop at the loss of three men, and you come here prating about your claim to post rank.’

‘And eight wounded. If an action is to be rated according to the casualty-​list, my Lord, I beg leave to remind you that your flagship at the Battle of St Vincent had one killed and five wounded.’

‘Do you presume to stand there and compare a great fleet action with a -,

‘With a what, sir?’ cried Jack, a red veil appearing in his eye.

The angry voices stopped abruptly. A door opened and closed, and the people in the corridor saw Captain Aubrey stride past, hurry down the stairs and vanish into the courtyard.

‘May 3. I did beg him not to speak of all this: yet it is known throughout the countryside. He knows nothing about women except as objects of desire (oh quite honourable desire at times): no sisters, a mother who died when he was very young, and has no conception of the power and diabolical energy of a Mrs W. She certainly wrung her information out of Sophia with her customary lack of scruple, and has spread it abroad with malignant excitement and busyness - the same indecent busyness that she displayed in whirling the girls off to Bath. This transparent blackmail of her health: playing on Sophia’s tender heart and sense of duty - what easier? All arrangements made in two days. None of her usual slow complaining muddle and whining vacillation for a month, nor yet a week, but two days’ strong activity: packed and gone. If this had happened even a week later, with an understanding between them, it would not have mattered. Sophie would have held to her engagement “come Hell or high water”. As it is, the circumstances could not be worse. Separation, inconstancy (JA’s strong animal spirits, any young man’s strong animal spirits), absence, the feeling of neglect.

‘What a barbarous animal that Williams is. I should have known nothing of their unseemly departure but for Diana’s notes and that sweet child’s troubled, furtive visit. I call her child, although she is no younger than DV, whom I look upon in quite another light: though indeed she too must have been exquisite as a child - not unlike Frances, I believe: the same ruthless, innocent cruelty. Gone. What a silence. How am I to tell JA of all this? I am tormented by the thought of striking him in the face.’

Yet the telling was simple enough. He said, ‘The girls have gone. Mrs Williams took them away to Bath last Tuesday sennight. Sophia came to see me and said she regretted it extremely.’

‘Did she leave a message for me?’ asked Jack, his sad face brightening.

‘She did not. In direct terms, she did not. At times it was difficult to follow her in her agitation. Miss Anna Coluthon, overcome by her position - an unattended girl calling upon a single gentleman. Champflower has not seen such a thing. But I do not mistake when I state that in substance she told me you were to know that she did not leave Sussex of her own free will, nor with a light heart.’

‘Do you think I might write to her, under cover to Diana Villiers?’ asked Jack.

‘Diana Villiers is still here. She does not go to Bath:

she stays at Mapes Court,’ said Stephen coldly.

The news spread. The decision on the prizes was public knowledge, having been reported in the London papers; and there were enough naval officers in the neighbourhood, some of whom were affected by the agent’s defection, to make the extent of the disaster clear. The announcement ‘at Woolhampton, on the 19th instant, to the lady of General Aubrey, a son’ merely rounded out the anecdote.

Bath was filled with Mrs Williams’s triumph. ‘It is certainly a divine retribution, my dears. We were told he was a sad rake, and you will remember I never liked him from the first: I said there was something wrong about his mouth. My instinct is never mistaken. I did not like his eye, neither.’

‘Oh, Mama,’ cried Frances, ‘you said he was the most gentleman-​like man you had ever seen, and so handsome.’

‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ cried Mrs Williams. ‘And you may leave the room, Miss Pert. You shall have no pudding, for want of respect.’

It was soon found that other people had never liked Jack either: - his mouth, chin, eyes, lavish entertainment, horses, plans for a pack of hounds, all came in for adverse comment. Jack had seen this process before; he had an outsider’s knowledge of it; but although his condemnation was neither gross nor universal, he found it more painful than he had expected - the first cautious reserve of the tradesmen, a certain easiness and assumption in the country gentlemen, an indefinable want of consideration.

He had taken Melbury for a year, the rent was paid, the house could not be sublet; there was no point in removing. He retrenched, sold his hunters, told his men that although it grieved him they must part as soon as they could find places, and stopped giving dinners. His horses were fine animals and he sold one for as much as he had given for it; this satisfied the immediate local duns, but it did not re-​establish his credit, for although Champflower was willing to believe in any amount of cloudy wealth (and Jack’s fortune had been reckoned very high), it had poverty weighed up to within a pound or two.