The Surgeon's Mate (48 page)

'You will not remember me, Dr Maturin,' said the first man, advancing. 'D'Anglars: I had the honour of meeting you when I was attached to the suite of Monsieur de Talleyrand-Perigord during his embassy to London; and I believe we have several common friends.'

'I remember you perfectly, sir,' said Stephen, 'and of course I recall his Excellency with the greatest esteem. I had the pleasure of seeing him a little while ago. Neither of you has changed at all.' This was not quite true as far as d'Anglars was concerned; he was now but an aged beauty and even by lantern-light the rouge showed plain on his intelligent, lively, but ravaged face. On the other hand, Stephen did have an affectionate admiration for the Bishop of Autun, or the Prince de Benevent as he was now styled: a pillar of falsehood, a prodigy, a phoenix of-duplicity, but excellent company, and by a certain standard quite sound.

'You are too, too kind,' said d'Anglars with a turn of his person that reminded Stephen of La Mothe, who was in fact one of their common friends. 'I see you are busy,' he went on, 'but perhaps we might have a word together? You will excuse us,' he said, bowing to Captain Aubrey and Jagiello.

'By all means,' said Jack, returning the civility; and glancing beyond him Stephen observed that d'Anglars' companions were Duhamel, of course, an officer whose cloak only partly hid a very splendid uniform, and a man in black whose face, in spite of an eye-shade, he connected with the foreign ministry, the upper reaches of the foreign ministry.

They walked into Jagiello's room with the candle, now very low, and sat in the window-seat. 'Duhamel has told us your conditions,' said d'Anglars. 'We agree on all points but one. You require the restitution of the stone, the Blue Peter; and the stone alas we cannot produce immediately. But here is a pledge of its eventual restoration.' He brought out an episcopal ring set with a huge amethyst: Stephen looked at it with some curiosity but not much liking; he did not seem pleased and he did not reply. 'On the other hand,' d'Anglars went on, 'we can produce the stone's owner, ready and indeed eager to travel, as you put it.' His voice was urgent, ingratiating, uncertain. Stephen still did not answer, but turned the amethyst over and over in the candlelight. 'And as for compensation,' said d'Anglars, more confident now, 'I have draughts here on Drummond's...

'No, no,' said Stephen. 'That would complicate matters, and I have always avoided complication. Tell me, what guarantees do you offer?'

'We three will go with you to the cartel at Calais, and cross to England if you wish. Our life, or at least our liberty, will be in your hands: you may carry what weapons you choose.'

'Very well,' said Stephen. 'My companions come with me, of course?'

'Captain Aubrey and young Apollo?'

'Just so.'

'Certainly.'

'Then let us go.'

As they walked back, Stephen limping, d'Anglars said pleasantly, nodding at the dislocated jakes, 'I am concerned that you should have had so much trouble; but nothing could serve our purpose more prettily: wonderfully a propos: the perfect alibi. This way, by the door.'

'Captain Aubrey, Mr Jagiello,' said Stephen, 'we will go with these gentlemen, if you please.'

Politeness over precedence at the open door, locked behind them, then down and down the spiral staircase, a long passage, a courtyard they had never seen, a wicket with two dark figures that stood aside for them to pass, then the street, wonderfully open and ordinary: two coaches and two horses led. The man in black and the cloaked officer mounted. Jack, Duhamel and Jagiello stepped into the first coach, Stephen and d'Anglars into the second, and they drove off at a steady trot through the quiet dark streets - a warm, covered night - down towards the river.

'Where do we take up the lady?' asked Stephen.

'Why, at the Hotel de La Mothe,' said d'Anglars, surprised.

'Indeed? You are as sure as that?'

'Oh yes,' said d'Anglars, and it was clear from his voice that he was smiling.

'She has not been molested?'

'Not really. There was an American gentleman, a newly-arrived American gentleman, enquiring for a compatriot with whom he thought she might have some connection; but she has not been molested.'

On the Pont au Change Stephen said, 'It is understood, is it not, that she will believe this release to be entirely her own doing?'

'Certainly,' said d'Anglars. 'Certainly.' And he added, 'Anything else would be folly, from our point of view.'

The rue de Crenelle, and already a few market-waggons, one piled high with flowers. The Hotel de La Mothe, and Diana was waiting for them there in the courtyard, slender under her hooded cloak, with a group of menservants by another coach loaded with trunks. Stephen leapt out and limped up to her, she running to meet him; they kissed and he said 'Dearest Diana, how profoundly I thank you: but I have cost you the Blue Peter.'

'Oh how happy I am to see you,' she said, holding his arm. 'Be damned to the necklace: you will be my diamond.' Then, 'Stephen, you have torn your stocking - your leg is all covered with blood.'

'Sure, I just barked my shin. Tell, how do you do, my jewel? I heard from Baudelocque that you were not quite well.'

'Stephen,' she said, looking at him under the lamp, 'I did not do it, I promise you. I kept my word: I took great care: I was amazed - amazed. Dr Baudelocque said it could not be helped, upon my honour.'

'There was no help for it,' he said, nodding, 'that I know very well. Give me your hand, put your foot on the step, and we are away: with the blessing.'

Away and away, with the sky lightening on the right hand of the road. At Beaumont le Chateau they changed carriages in a great silent house far down its avenue of limes. Duhamel seemed to be the somewhat incongruous master of the place and he led them in to shave, to put on civilian clothes, and to breakfast. As they were trying on their coats Stephen said, 'Listen, Jack, you must know that Diana gave her great diamond to a minister's wife for our release.'

'Did she, by God?' cried Jack, motionless, one arm in his sleeve. 'Handsome - damn my soul if that ain't handsome. But Stephen, she was so pleased and proud of it - nothing finer in the Tower - a king's ransom - how can I thank her? She was always a thoroughbred, but this... Sophie will be so eternally grateful: so am I, upon my sacred honour, so am I.' He ran into the high gaunt echoing room where breakfast stood on a trestle-table, seized her in his powerful grasp, kissed her heartily on either cheek and said, 'Cousin Diana, I am so grateful. I am proud, oh so proud, to call you kin, as proud as Lucifer, upon my soul. God bless you, my dear.'

In their new coach, a vast machine with six horses, he said she must live at Ashgrove Cottage; neither Sophie nor he would hear of a refusal; and as they sped through Picardy they talked of Stephen at length. He was now in the leading carriage with d'Anglars and Duhamel, in close discussion of the documents he was to carry and to comment upon in London. Any plan for bringing Buonaparte down had his wholehearted support, however wild it might be; and this was very far from wild. He made suggestions for rendering it more acceptable to English feelings, but these were changes of tone or of shading, never of substance: he thought the whole proposal admirably well conceived. Keen, intelligent, analytical minds had been at work, and he cordially hoped they might succeed - that they might meet with equal intelligence in London and at Hartwell.

The same minds had worked out their route and the details of their journey, and although he had seen what could be accomplished by efficient organization when urgent intelligence had to move fast, he had never experienced anything as smoothly effective as this. Only once, three miles beyond Villeneuve, was there the slightest delay, when a horse cast a shoe; otherwise they rolled across Picardy, rolled across Artois with never an unforeseen pause. They passed columns of troops, many of them mere boys, all marching north, long lines of cavalry remounts, a siege-train, ammunition and victualling waggons, field artillery; and every time the road was cleared well before they swept by.

Stephen knew very well that most French victories had been founded on brilliant staff-work, and it was clear that the conspiracy included some eminent staff-officers; yet he sometimes felt that this perfection could not endure, that some senior general commanding an important post might require explanations and confirmation from Paris, or that some other faction that valued Johnson and his government should send after them or worse still use the semaphore telegraph whose towers he saw on every hill. But he was mistaken: they ran into Calais at high water, with the cartel, HMS Oedipus, in the harbour, ready to sail on the ebb; and there was even a moderate off-shore breeze.

'You will have a comfortable voyage at least,' he said, for it had been agreed that d'Anglars should accompany him, if only to make everything doubly clear to his cousin Blacas and to the titular king. 'That ship, or rather brig, is a particularly fine sailer: a good, dry, weatherly sea-boat, as we say. Furthermore, the ocean is placid.'

'I am glad of that," said d'Anglars. 'The last time I crossed I was very dangerously ill. I was obliged to lie down.'

Apart from smugglers, the Channel knew no vessels more discreet than these cartels; they moored in a discreet, shielded part of the harbour, and when they belonged to the Royal Navy, as did the Oedipus of course, they were commanded by unusually discreet captains, often quite senior men temporarily detached for the purpose. Jack, sitting in the window of the private house where they were waiting to embark, was therefore surprised to see William Babbington on the quarterdeck, obviously directing proceedings; for Babbington had served under him as a midshipman and a lieutenant, and although Jack knew he had been made commander into the captured Sylphide - Jack had in fact written many letters and stirred up his friends to that very effect - Babbington still seemed to him remarkably young for such a position.

But young or not, Captain Babbington understood the meaning of the word discretion as well as any man in the service; and when his passengers, English and French, came aboard there was no hint of recognition in his correct, civil reception, no hint on either side. He directed a midshipman to take Captain Aubrey, Dr Maturin and the lady to his cabin, the foreign gentlemen to the gunroom: this being done, he looked fore and aft, and in a creditable imitation of Jack's quarterdeck voice he roared 'All hands unmoor ship.'

The Oedipus cleared the wharf under forestaysail and jib, with her topsails on the cap; she hoisted home her yards in the fairway and ran past the north buoy, wafting very gently and discreetly through the crowd of fishing-boats and coming to the outer roads in a little over half an hour. Here Captain Babbington let fall his courses and some pretty severe remarks about the sloth of the midshipmen at the larboard gaskets, a sloth that foretold the ruin of the Navy within a very short lapse of time. He had just uttered this prophecy, which he had first heard from Jack at the age of twelve, when a tall shadow fell across the deck, and turning he saw the original prophet himself, looking nervous, apprehensive, uneasy, timid, a striking sight for one who had gone into action with Captain Aubrey as often as William Babbington.

'Shall we go below, sir?' he asked, smiling uncertainly.

'Why, I believe I shall take the air for a while,' said Jack, moving aft to the taffrail. 'It is rather hot down there.'

'Carry on, Mr Somerville,' said Babbington, and he joined his former captain by the ensign-staff.

'They are at it hammer and tongs,' said Jack in a low, private voice. 'Hammer and goddam tongs. They might have been married this twelvemonth and more.'

'Dear me,' said Babbington, appalled.

The yards were braced just so, the Oedipus was heading for Dover over a quiet, gently rippling sea, her deck was almost as steady as a table, and now that all was coiled down and pretty there was scarcely a sound but the wind in her rigging, the distant cry of gulls, and the water slipping down her side. They were standing not far from the cabin skylight, and in the comparative silence they distinctly heard the words, 'God's death, Maturin, what an obstinate stubborn pigheaded brute you are, upon my honour. You always were.'

'Perhaps you would like to see our figurehead, sir,' said Babbington. 'It is a new one: in the Grecian taste, I believe.'

Oedipus might well have been in the Grecian taste, if the Greeks had been much given to very thick paint, an insipid smirk, eyes fixed in a meaningless glare, and scarlet cheeks. The two captains stared at the image and after a while Jack said, 'I was never any great fist at the classics, but was there not something rather odd about his feet?'

'I believe there was, sir. But fortunately they don't show, he being cut off at the waist.'

'Though now I come to think of it, was it not his marriage, rather than his feet?'

'Perhaps it was both, sir: they might go together. And I seem to recall something in Gregory's Polite Education to that effect.'

Captain Aubrey pondered, staring at the dolphin-striker. 'I have it,' he cried. 'You are quite right: both marriage and feet. I remember the Doctor telling me the whole story when we lay alongside Jocasta in Rosia Bay. I do not mean the least fling at your figurehead, still less your brig, Babbington, but that family was not really quite the thing, you know. There were some very odd capers, and it ended unhappy. But then the relationships between men and women are often very odd, and I am afraid they often end unhappy. How do you find your martingales answer, led single like that?'

In the cabin Diana said, 'Stephen, dear, how can you possibly expect any woman to marry you when you present it as a mere matter of expediency? As something forced upon her?'

'I only said that Johnson was in Paris, that the English ports were closed against you as an enemy alien, and that you had no choice,' said Stephen, looking miserable, confused and upset. 'I have been trying to get that into your thick head this hour at least, Villiers.'

'There - there you go again,' cried Diana. 'Surely you must know, surely you must feel that any woman, even a woman as battered as I am, must look for something more - more, what shall I say? - more romantic in an offer of marriage? Even if I were to marry you, which is totally inconceivable, I should never, never do so after such a grovelling, such an utterly mundane and businesslike proposal. It is a question of common good manners, or ordinary civility. Really, Maturin, I wonder at you.'