Treason's Harbour (3 page)

'Here is the other one," said Lesueur, as Graham came out of the green shade and sat by Stephen Maturin. 'There were confusing reports about him, and at one time he seemed to be part of a different organization altogether; but now it appears that he is only a linguist, employed to deal with Turkish and Arabic documents, and that he must soon go back to his university. You will have him watched, however, and his connections noted. Where that woman can be I cannot tell. She was supposed to be here twenty-three, no, twenty-four minutes ago, to give Aubrey his lesson. Now she will not have time before his meeting.'

A long pause, and Giuseppe, who had the corner shutter to peer through as well as that which gave the frontal view, said, 'There is a lady hurrying down the side-alley with a maid.' "

'Has she a dog? A great enormous Illyrian mastiff?'

'No, sir, she has not.'

'Then it is not Mrs Fielding,' said Lesueur in a cross, positive voice. But he was mistaken, as he perceived the moment the lady and her black-cowled maid turned the corner and hurried into the court of Searle's hotel.

All the men at Aubrey's table sprang to their feet, for this was not an example of local solace, no fifth gardener: far from it. Indeed, when Captain Pelham fell flat on his face it would hardly have been an exaggerated testimony of his respect if it had been voluntary, instead of too much Marsala and an inconvenient chair-leg.

There was an amiable hubbub as Mrs Fielding tried to apologize to Captain Aubrey and at the same time to satisfy those officers who wished to know how she did, and what had happened to Ponto. This was the grim censorious puritanical unsmiling creature with a collar of steel spokes, the Illyrian mastiff, an animal the size of a moderate calf that always stalked by Laura Fielding's side, holding in its long stride to match her shorter step and protecting her from the least familiarity by its mere presence; or if that were not enough then by a thunderous growl. As far as it could be made out, Ponto had been left at home in disgrace for killing an ass; he was perfectly capable of doing so, but Mrs Fielding's English was sometimes a little wild and the calmness with which she spoke of the act made it seem that there was some mistake.

'Upon my word, gentlemen,' she went on, with scarcely a pause, 'you are all very fine today. White breeches! Silk stockings!'

Why, yes, they said. Had she not heard? Calliope had brought Mr Wray of the Admiralty last night, and they were going to pay their respects at the Governor's in twenty minutes, square-rigged and with a vast expenditure of breeches-ball and hair-powder, confident that their collective beauty would strike him dumb with amazement.

It was pleasant to see how the captains, some of them true tartars aboard, most of them thoroughly accustomed to battle, and all of them capable of assuming great responsibility, played the fool before a pretty woman. 'There is a capital book to be written on the human mating display in all its ludicrous variety,' observed Dr Maturin. 'Not, however, that this is more than a faint shadowing-forth of the full ceremony. Here we have no strong rivalry, no burning eagerness among the men, no real hope,' - this with a penetrating glance at his friend Aubrey; 'and in any event the lady is not at leisure.' Mrs Fielding was certainly not at leisure in Maturin's particular sense of the word, but it was pleasant too to see how well she took their open though respectful admiration, their kindly banter and their flights of wit - no missishness, no bridling, no simpering, but no bold over-confidence either: she hit just the right note of friendliness, and Maturin watched her with admiration. He had earlier noticed her ignoring of Pelham's drunkenness - she was used to men of war -and now he observed her instant recovery from the shock of seeing Pulling's face as Jack Aubrey led him out of the arbour's shade to be presented and the particularly kind way in which she wished him joy of his promotion and asked him to her house that evening - a very small party, just to hear the rehearsal of a quartet: he saw her childish delight when the chelengk was put through its paces and her frank greed when she had it in her hands and she was admiring the big stones at the top. He watched her with curiosity, and with something more than that. For one thing she reminded him strongly of his first love: she had the same build, rather small but as slim and straight as a rush, and the same striking dark red hair; and by a very singular coincidence she too had arranged it so that a touchingly elegant nape was to be seen, and an ear with a delicate curve. For another she had shown him particular attention.

Insects might still delude Maturin and pierce his skin, but at this late stage it was difficult for women to do so. He knew that no one could possibly admire him for his looks; he had no illusions about his social charms or his conversation; and although he felt that his best books, Remarks on Pezophaps Solitarious and Modest Proposals for the Preservation of Health in the Navy, were not without merit, he did not believe that either would set any female bosom in a blaze. Even his wife had not been able to get through more than a few pages, in spite of her very real good will. His status in the Navy was modest - he was not even a commissioned officer -and he had neither patronage nor influence. Nor was he rich.

Mrs Fielding's amiability and her invitations were therefore prompted by something other than a notion (however remote) of gallantry or of profit: what it might be he could not tell unless indeed it had to do with intelligence. If that were so then clearly it was his duty to be all compliance. There was no other way in which he could sift the matter; no other way in which he could either surprise her connections or induce her to reveal them, or use her to convey false information. He might be completely mistaken - after a while an intelligence-agent tended to see spies everywhere, rather as certain lunatics saw references to themselves in every newspaper - but whether or no he intended to play his part in the hypothetical game. And he the more easily persuaded himself that this was the right course since he liked her company, liked her musical evenings, and was convinced that he could govern any untimely emotion that might rise in his heart. It was for Mrs Fielding that he had put on these white stockings (for neither his rank nor his inclination required his presence at the reception), and it was for Mrs Fielding that he now advanced, swept off his hat, made his most courtly leg and cried, 'A very good day to you, ma'am. I trust I find you well?'

'All the better for seeing you, sir,' said she, smiling and giving him her hand. 'Dear Doctor, cannot you persuade Captain Aubrey to take his lesson? We only have to memorate the trapassato remoto.'

'Alas, he is a sailor; and you know the sailor's slavish devotion to clocks and bells.'

A shadow passed over Laura Fielding's face: her only disagreement with her husband had been on the subject of punctuality. With a slightly artificial cheerfulness she went on, 'Just the regular trapassato remoto, not ten minutes.'

'Look,' said Stephen, pointing to the clock in the Apothecary's Tower. They all turned, and once again the watchers involuntarily recoiled. 'Ten minutes is all these fine gentlemen have in which to pace stately to the Governor's; for they must not pelt up the cruel slope, creasing their careful neckcloths, losing their hair-powder, gasping in the heat, and arriving in a state of crimson dissolution. You had much better sit down with me and drink a glass of iced cow's milk in the shade; the goat I cannot recommend.'

'I dare not,' she said, as the captains took their leave, walking off in order of seniority, 'I should be late for Miss Lumley. Captain Aubrey,' she called, 'if by any chance I should be delayed for this evening's rehearsal, I beg you will step in and show Captain Pullings the lemon-tree;it has been watered today! Giovanna is going to Notabile directly, but the door will not be really shut.'

'I should be very happy to show Captain Pullings the lemon-tree,' said Jack, and at the word captain Pullings laughed aloud once more. 'It is the finest lemon-tree of my acquaintance. And pray, ma'am, will Ponto be going to Notabile too?'

'No. Last time he killed some goats and childs. But he knows the naval uniform. He will not say anything to you, unless perhaps you touch the lemons.'

'Your plan seems to answer, sir,' said Giuseppe, watching the officers and Graham start climbing the steps towards the palace and Stephen and Mrs Fielding sit down to a dish of iced cream flavoured with coffee.They had agreed that Miss Lumley was not a sea-officer and could not therefore have so morbidly acute a sense of measured time.

'I believe it may answer very well said Lesueur. 'In general I have found that the uglier the man, the greater his vanity.'

'Now, sir,' said Laura Fielding, licking her spoon, 'since you have been so very kind, and since I should like to send Giovanna off to Notabile, I shall ask you to be kinder still and walk with me as far as St Publius: there are always a great many blackguard soldiers hanging about the Porta Reale, and without my dog ,..'

Dr Maturin declared that he should be happy to act as vicar to so noble a creature, and indeed he looked unusually pleased and cheerful as they left the courtyard and as he handed her across the Piazza Regina, crowded with soldiers and two separate herds of goats; but by the time they were walking past the Auberge de Castile part of his mind had drifted away, back to the subject of mood and its origins. Another part was very much in the present, however, and his silence was in some degree deliberate; it did not last long, but as he had foreseen it disturbed Laura Fielding. She was under a constraint - a constraint that he perceived more and more clearly - and both her tone and her smile were somewhat artificial when she said, 'Do you like dogs?'

'Dogs, is it?' he said, giving her a sideways glance and smiling. 'Why now, if you were an ordinary commonplace everyday civilly-prating gentlewoman I should smirk and say "Lord, ma'am, I dote upon 'em," with as graceful as writhe of my person as I could manage. But since it is you I shall only observe that I understand your words as a request that I should say something: you might equally have asked did I like men, or women, or even cats, serpents, bats.'

'Not bats,' cried Mrs Fielding.

'Certainly bats said Dr Maturin. 'There is as much variety in them as in other creatures: I have known some very high-spirited, cheerful bats, others sullen, froward, dogged, morose. And of course the same applies to dogs - there is the whole gamut from false fawning yellow curs to the heroic Ponto.'

'Dear Ponto said Mrs Fielding. 'He is a great comfort to me; but I wish he were a little wiser. My father had a Maremma dog, a bog-dog, that could multiply and divide.'

'Yet, said Maturin, pursuing his own thought, 'there is a quality in dogs, 1 must confess, rarely to be seen elsewhere and that is affection: I do not mean the violent possessive protective love for their owner but rather that mild, steady attachment to their friends that we see quite often in the best sort of dog. And when you consider the rarity of plain disinterested affection among our own kind, once we are adult, alas ? when you consider how immensely it enhances daily life and how it enriches a man's past and future, so that he can look back and forward with complacency - why, it is a pleasure to find it in brute creation.'

Affection was also to be found in commanders: it fairly beamed from Pullings as Jack Aubrey led him up to the Governor and his guest. Jack did not at all relish this meeting with Wray, but since he felt that he could not avoid it without meanness he was glad that etiquette required that he should present his former lieutenant: the necessary formality would take away some of the awkwardness. Not that there seemed a great deal of awkwardness ahead, he reflected, looking along the line. Wray looked much the same, a tall, good-looking, animated, gentlemanlike fellow wearing a black coat with a couple of foreign orders; he was perfectly well aware of Jack's approach - their eyes had met some time before - but he was laughing away with Sir Hildebrand and a red-faced civilian, apparently quite unmoved, as though he had not the least reason to look furtive, or even uneasy in his mind.

The line moved on. It was their turn. Jack made the presentation to the Governor, who replied with a slight inclination of his head, an indifferent look, and the word 'Happy'. Then he urged Pullings on a step and said, 'Sir, allow me to name Captain Pullings. Captain Pullings, Mr Secretary Wray.'

'I am delighted to see you, Captain Pullings,' said Wray, holding out his hand, 'and I congratulate you with all my heart on your share in the Surprise's brilliant victory. As soon as I read Captain Aubrey's dispatch,'- bowing to Jack - 'and his glowing account of your unparalleled exertions I said Mr Pullings must be promoted. There were gentlemen who objected that the Torgud was not in the Sultan's service at the moment of her capture - that the promotion would be irregular - that it would establish an undesirable precedent. But I insisted that we should attend to Captain Aubrey's recommendation, and I may tell you privately,' he added in a lower tone, smiling placidly at Jack as he did so, 'that I insisted all the more strongly, because at one time Captain Aubrey seemed to do me an injustice, and by promoting his lieutenant I could, as the sea-phrase goes, the better wipe his eye. Few things have given me greater pleasure than bringing out the commission, and I am only sorry that the victory should have cost you such a cruel wound.'

'Mr Wray: Colonel Manners of the Forty-Third,' said Sir Hildebrand, who felt that this had been going on far too long.

Jack and Pullings bowed and gave place to the Colonel: Jack heard the Governor say 'That was Aubrey, who took Marga,' and the soldier's almost instant keen reply 'Ah?

It was held by the enemy, I recollect?' but his mind was deeply perturbed. Was it possible that he had misjudged Wray? Could any man have such boundless impudence to speak so if it were false? Wray could certainly have barred the promotion if he had wished; there was the perfect excuse of the Torgud's being a rebel. Jack tried to recall the exact details of that far-away unhappy, angry evening in Portsmouth - just what was the sequence of events? -just how much had he drunk? - who were the other civilians at the table? - but he had been through a great deal of much more open violence since that time and he could jio longer fix the grounds of his then certainty. Cheating there had been, and for large sums of money, of that he was still sure; but there had been several players at the table, not only Andrew Wray.