Book 9 - Treason's Harbour

by Patrick O'Brian

  'I believe we are both to dine at the Governor's,' said Wray to Stephen as they stood upon the Caledonia's quarterdeck. 'May I give you a lift to the shore? But perhaps it would be too early: perhaps you had rather go back to your ship. Sir Hildebrand will not be sitting down for a great while yet.'

  'Not at all. I should be very happy to go ashore. The monks of St Simon's sing sext and nones together today, and I long to hear them.'

  'Do they, indeed? It would give me great pleasure to come with you, if I may. I have been so taken up with these squalid investigations that I have scarcely been able to go this last fortnight.'

  'Squalid investigations,' he said again as they came blinking out of St Simon's into the powerful sun. 'I had meant to tell you about some of the suspicions that have occurred to me—some most surprising people—there is really no one to trust—munera navium saevos inlaqueant duces, you know—but after that pure bath of music I have not the heart. Shall we step into our arbour, until is it time for dinner?'

  'That would be delightful,' said Stephen; and very pleasant he found it, sitting there in the green shade, a small breeze taking the bite out of the fierce heat of the day, and they drinking iced coffee. It was not so much that Wray laid himself out to charm, but a man speaking with disinterested love on a subject he knew well—and Wray had a surprising knowledge of music, ancient and modern—could hardly fail to be an agreeable companion to one with the same tastes. Not all their tastes were the same, however: from behind his green spectacles Stephen watched Wray when the young man of the house, a beautiful youth with caressing ways, brought them their drinks, their cigars, their lights, and then unnecessary lights again, and it occurred to him that the Second Secretary was probably a paederast, or at least one who, like Horace, might burn for either sex. This aroused no virtuous indignation in Stephen; no indignation of any kind. He loved Horace, and, having the usual tolerant Mediterranean attitude, he had loved many another man with the same eclectic inclinations. Yet Wray was not entirely at his ease: as soon as they left music he showed a certain nervous restlessness, calling for more coffee, more cigars before the first were half finished—he was not in form.

  'I believe I must abandon you,' said Stephen at last. 'I have to pass by the hotel to put some money in my pocket.'

  'Perhaps we should both be moving,' said Wray. 'But as for money, I have plenty on me—five pounds at least.'

  'You are very good,' said Stephen. 'But I meant an even greater sum. I am told that they play very high at the palace, and since my man of business states that Croesus is nothing to me, at least as far as this quarter is concerned, I mean to indulge my favourite vice for an hour or so.'

  Wray looked at him, but could not make out whether he was speaking in earnest: Stephen Maturin had nothing of the look of a gambler, yet what he said was quite true—from time to time he loved to play, and that to the very uttermost limit of his resources. It was a great weakness, he knew; but he kept it severely in check; and since he had spent a long time in a Spanish prison in the same cell as a wealthy card-sharper (a man not condemned to the garotte for cheating, since he never was discovered, but for rape) it was at least unlikely that he should be grossly imposed upon.

  They walked a little way in silence and then Wray said 'You and Aubrey are at Carlotta's, are you not?'

  'At Searle's, to be quite exact.'

  'Then I will say farewell, since here I turn to the right, and you carry straight on.'

  They ways parted, but not for long. They were seated fairly near to one another at dinner, and as Stephen's right-hand neighbour, Mr Summerhays, had so weak a head that he drowned in his second glass of claret, while the German officer on his left had no English, French or Latin, he had plenty of time to look about him. Wray got along well with men at this kind of gathering; he was clever and amusing. He might lack weight and substance, and politics might suit his undoubted abilities better than government service, certainly better than intelligence, but there was no doubt that he could make himself agreeable to men as different as the very well-read financial secretary and the brutish provost-marshal.

  When dinner was over most of the guests—they were all men, and they included most of the important soldiers and civilians of Valletta—moved into the card-room, and here Stephen, having seen his botanist on his way, joined them. Several grave gentlemen were already set to scientific whist, but most were gathered round the hazard table, where Sir Hildebrand himself held the bank. Stephen watched for a while, and although he had heard of the high stakes these people played for, he was surprised to see the quantity of money that was actually changing hands.

  'Will you not call a main?' asked Wray behind him.

  'I will not,' said Stephen. 'I promised my godfather never to touch dice again when he rescued me from a sad scrape in my youth, so now I am confined to cards.'

  'What do you say to a hand of piquet?'

  'With all my heart.'

  Maturin, when playing cards, was not the most amiable of mortals. When he was playing seriously he played to win, as though he were conducting an operation against the enemy; and although he scrupulously observed the letter of the rules he always, and in the most civil way, seized upon any advantage that might present itself. He was playing seriously now, as well he might in view of the stakes they had agreed upon, and he had chosen a table near the window, sitting so that the light fell full upon Wray's face and not at all upon his own.

  He was not surprised to find that Wray was obviously an inveterate card-player; the pack fairly flowed from his hands as he dealt and he shuffled like a conjuror. Nor was he surprised to find that in spite of all this practice Wray was quite ignorant of the disadvantage of his position, for indeed it was very little known, even among professional gamblers. Although Stephen was a medical man, keenly interested in physiology, he had had no idea of it himself until he was in the gaol of Teruel, when Jaime, his cellmate, showed him the effect of emotion upon the pupil of the eye. 'It is as good as a mirror behind your opponent's back, showing his hand,' said Jaime; and he explained that the pupil would contract or expand quite involuntarily, quite uncontrollably, according to its owner's perception of the value of his cards and the likelihood of his bringing off a brilliant stroke or the reverse. The more emotional the player and the higher the stakes the greater the effect; but it worked in any circumstances, so long as there was something to win or lose. The only trouble was that you had to have excellent eyes to see the change; you had to have a good deal of practice to interpret it; and your opponent had to be well lit.

  Stephen had excellent eyes, and he had had a great deal of practice, having used the method with remarkable effect in his interrogations; and Wray sat with a serene north light full on his face. Furthermore, although Wray had long since learnt to keep his face from showing anything but the urbane complaisance expected in good company, he was an emotional man (unusually so today, thought Stephen) and they were playing for high stakes. And since almost everything in this game depended on discarding and taking up, his changing fortunes could be read in rapid sequence. Yet even without this Stephen could not have failed to win; luck was with him from the first hand to the last, when he picked up the seven top hearts, discarded three little diamonds, the knave and ten of spades, and took in the three remaining aces, a king and the seven of spades, thus spoiling Wray's splendid point of seven and septième to the king by one pip, repiquing him, and, since Wray misjudged the last card, taking all the tricks and so capoting him into the bargain.

  'There is no satisfaction in winning with such outrageous good fortune,' said Stephen.

  'I believe I could bear it,' said Wray with a good imitation of a cheerful laugh, as he brought out his pocket-book. 'Perhaps you will give me my revenge some day when you are at leisure.'

  Stephen said he should be happy, took leave of the Governor, and walked off, his bosom rustling with crisp new bank-notes. Laura Fielding was to come to him late that evening, and on the way back to the hotel he bought f
lowers, pastries, some fresh eggs, a cold roast loin of pork, a small spirit-stove, and a mandoline. These he arranged in the sitting-room he had taken for decency's sake, and then called for the hotel's bath to be prepared. Having soaked in hot water for a while, he changed his linen and beautified his person as far as its very meagre possibilities would allow, shaving his face (which he had not done either for the Admiral or the Governor), putting more powder on his wig, brushing his coat, looking in the glass from time to time in the vain hope that some prodigy might transform the reflection; for although he knew intellectually that his relationship with Mrs Fielding must remain perfectly chaste, much of his being longed for it to be otherwise and his breath came short at the idea of seeing her so soon.

  Soon however was a relative term and it embraced enough space of time for him to rearrange the flowers twice, to drop the cold roast loin of pork, and to become convinced that there had been a misunderstanding about the day, the hour, the place. He was quite morose by the time a waiter knocked on the door and said that there was a lady to see him.

  'Show her up,' said Stephen in a dissatisfied tone; but when she was there—when she had thrown back the hood of her tent-like faldetta and taken off her domino—he felt his resentment melt away like frost in the full sun. She was not unaware of its momentary presence however nor of the fact that she was disgracefully late, and she did her best to be particularly agreeable, exclaiming at the flowers, the mandoline, the noble array of little cakes. Alas, it was the unkindest thing she could have done; the stifled fires burnt up with a still fiercer flame. After a while he walked into his bedroom, quickly repeated three Aves, and came back with a paper that purported to be the discarded rough draft of a coded message, one that came to an abrupt half because of a fault in the ciphering. 'There,' he said, 'that will convince the man that you are making progress.'

  She thanked him. 'Oh, how I hope it does,' she said with a worried face. 'Mother of God, I am so anxious.'

  'I am sure it will,' he said in a voice that carried conviction.

  She said, 'I rely on your entirely,' and after that neither spoke until some minutes had passed, when Stephen said 'Should you like a boiled egg?'

  'A boiled egg?' she cried.

  'Just so. I thought we should have a small collation to see us through the coming hours; and it is common knowledge that lovers eat boiled eggs, to invigorate themselves. We must set the scene, you know.'

  'I should love a boiled egg, in any case. I had no time for dinner.'

  Laura Fielding was a young woman with a splendid constitution. In spite of her very real, very deep anxiety she ate two eggs; then, appetite coming with eating, she set about the loin of pork; and after a pause she ranged at large among the cakes, a glass of generous marsala in her hand—it was a pleasure to feed her.

  And it was a pleasure to listen to her when she took the mandoline. She played it in the Sicilian manner, making it utter an almost continuous whining, nasal music that contrasted charmingly with her husky contralto as she sang a long, long ballad about the Paladin Orlando and his love for Angelica.

  Although he had eaten an adequate dinner at the palace, Stephen had thought it was his duty as a host to share their collation, egg for egg, slice for slice; and what with the power of prayer and the effect of surfeit he found the extreme stimulus of desire fade to a perfectly bearable pitch, so that they passed the later hours of their meeting in a calm and amicable manner, though a little greasy, there being no forks. They talked away with scarcely a pause, comfortable, confidential talk, going from one subject to another and eventually reaching memories of childhood and youth; she told him that although she had been far from discreet when she was a girl (her father had a place under the Great Chamberlain, and discretion at the court of the Two Sicilies was absurd), ever since she was married she had been perfectly virtuous. It was therefore all the more wounding that Charles Fielding's solitary fault should be jealousy. He was kind, brave, generous, beautiful, everything the most exacting woman could wish, except that he was as possessive and suspicious as a Spaniard or a Moor. She described some of the unjustifiable scenes he had made, but then, feeling that she had been unfair, disloyal and even wicked, she returned to his merits at far greater length.

  Stephen found his merits unutterably tedious, and at last in a pause when she sat looking down and smiling to herself, obviously thinking of merits of another kind, he said, 'Come, my dear, it is time for you to resume your disguise, or there will be nobody about to record your coming and going.'

  She put on her mask and her vast hooded cloak, Stephen unlocked the door and they tiptoed along the creaking corridor and down two flights of creaking stairs to Jack's floor; but there the relative silence was broken by a howl of pain, a confused rumbling and thumping, and by cries of 'Avast—belay, there.' Two slim figures shot across the landing and leapt straight out of an open window: and there was Killick with a candlestick roaring 'All hands, all hands, all hands. Stop thief!'

  He raced past them as doors opened on either side of the corridor, but in the lantern-lit hall they met him again. He had caught nobody, yet he was grinning with malignant triumph. 'There was two of the buggers,' he cried to the gathering assembly: then, catching sight of Stephen's companion, he plucked off his nightcap and said 'Beg pardon, Miss: two indiwiduals.'

  'They went out of the first-floor window,' said Stephen.

  'They didn't take it with them, though,' said Killick, and he explained to the company that the thieves had been after Captain Aubrey's chelengk, but that he, Preserved Killick, had been one too many for them, with his fish-hooks and double action rat-trap of extra power. One of the indiwiduals had left a finger in it and both on 'em a mort of blood: a joy to behold.

  More people came scurrying from below and above. On seeing Stephen the sea-officers glanced quickly away: out of discretion they did not address him by so much as a nod, but even so Laura shrank farther back into her hood—it was one thing to be marked by French agents, quite another to be recognized by people she lived among, her own and her difficult husband's friends.

  'Where is Captain Aubrey?' asked a voice.

  'A-wisiting,' said Killick shortly, and he began his explanation again for the benefit of the newcomers. The thieves might have swiped some gold lace and a trifle of money in the till of the chest, which there wasn't much, the Captain having put most of it in his pocket, and maybe a little box or two, but the diamonds were safe. Killick began to vary his account, increasing the number of fingers left behind and the quantity of blood; he grew insufferably prolix; and Stephen, taking Mrs Fielding by the elbow, guided her through the throng and out into the old, waning night.

  'You will not forget Saturday evening?' she said when he left her at her inner door, with Ponto snuffling monstrously on the other side of it. 'And please bring Aubrey too, if he would like to come.'

  'He asks nothing better, I am sure. And may I introduce another friend, the chaplain who made the voyage with us, Mr Martin?'

  'I shall love any friend of yours,' she said giving him her hand; and so they parted.

  'Good morning, my friend,' said Lesueur with his rare smile. 'I thought you would be in time today.'

  'What have you to say?' asked Wray angrily.

  'All's well,' said Lesueur, 'though the boys were very nearly caught, and one of them lost a finger. Our alarm was quite unnecessary: the box held nothing but private papers. Not the slightest indiscretion: not the slightest trace.'

  'Thank God, thank God,' said Wray; but there was still anger mixed with his relief and he went on, 'You might have sent me word. You must have known how anxious I was. I could not rest—I could not concentrate. Apart from anything else it made me lose a large sum of money at cards. A simple note would have saved all this.'

  'The less that is put into writing the better,' said Lesueur. 'Litera scripta manet. Look at this.'

  'What is it?'

  'The rough draft of a coded message. Do you not recognize it?'

&nb
sp; 'Admiralty B?'

  'Yes. But the writer grew confused in the second transposition, threw the draft away—or rather put it between the leaves of a book—and began again. If he had gone on a little longer it would have been of great value: even so, it is useful. Do you know the hand?'

  'It is Maturin's.'

  From Lesueur's animated expression it looked as though he might develop the subject at some length, but he checked whatever he had been going to say and asked, 'How did he behave at the meeting?'

  'He was very discreet—spoke of himself as an occasional and voluntary adviser, no more, and virtually told the Admiral that as such he had no orders to receive from any man. I believe he trusts no one in Malta. But in effect he gave his advice, fathering it on Waterhouse. You would have laughed to hear him speaking of restricted committees, precautions with ciphers, the detection of spies by planting false information and so on.'

  'If this advice came from Waterhouse, even in part, it would have been sound. He was a most exemplary, intelligent agent, wholly professional: I was present at his last interrogation. There was not the least hope of getting any sort of hold upon him. As for Maturin, I do have a certain indirect hold for the time being, but I am afraid it cannot last, and the moment it is gone he must be eliminated. The Dey of Mascara will answer the purpose, as you suggested before.'

  'Certainly,' said Wray. 'And I remember I said that the Dey might be used to kill two birds with one stone. Now I might go so far as to say three.'

  'So much the better,' said Lesueur. 'But in the meanwhile surely you would be well advised not to frequent him so much.'

  'Officially I shall probably only see him once more: I have no wish to see a disciple of Waterhouse's looking into my proceedings here, and I do not think he wishes to interfere in any way. And unofficially I shall in all likelihood spend no more than an afternoon with him, to have my revenge for a ridiculous run of bad luck. But you will allow me to say that I do not at all relish this spying, this supervision, this advice on the choice of my companions, or these airs of superiority.'