Patrick O'Brian

by Nikolai Tolstoy

  A consolation amid much surrounding gloom was his first meeting with two of his increasing body of influential admirers, the married writers John Bayley and Iris Murdoch. As Patrick possessed few friends in the literary world, the meeting provided him with enduring pleasure. After a visit to the London Library:

  Back [at the Challoner Club] in a hurry & indeed a cab which was just as well, since they arrived promptly. We have rarely met people we liked more – friendly, kind, full of talk. They were most flattering about my tales: but then on the other hand IM condemned Stendhal, Flaubert & really almost everyone except Proust & the Sartre of Les Chemins [de la liberté]. We should like to see v much more of them – he was of my opinion entirely about all the writing we spoke of.

  As ever, Patrick continued supportive of my work, even to the extent of confessing to a mild competitiveness. ‘An affectionate, happy letter from Nikolai: his Tolstoy book [a history of my family] is somewhat delayed, but already TV & journalists come. (This makes me repine a little, though indeed he does work v hard).’

  Patrick’s own writing so vividly affected his imagination as at times to interweave with reality: ‘Only 2 pp – a discontented day. This may have been caused, at least to some degree, by my writing of S[tephen]M[aturin] in a fury at being carried past the Galapagos.’[2]

  As 1983 slipped away, Patrick was troubled by renewed disturbing reveries. ‘Ill dreams – crumbling cliffs high over the beautiful sea – fear of missing boat – & another in which I bullied small children quite disgracefully.’

  In November, when driving to dine with friends in Perpignan, ‘at a corner of the street going down from the cathedral a car, driven fast from our right, ran into us. M had a rib cracked or broken … car badly damaged.’ Patrick, who was driving, was unhurt. I long ago lost count of the number of near-fatal traffic accidents in which they were involved: it seems indeed miraculous that they neither killed anyone, nor were themselves killed. Patrick was distressed about my mother’s injury, but with her recovery became almost as emotional about their much-loved machine:

  It quite hurt my heart not to see our old car in the garage, nor in the market-place at Argelès. M brought herself to get into it [a replacement Renault] in the afternoon, but I doubt she will ever like it, the 2CVs having such symbolic value: it is after all 30 years that we have had them, & some wonderful journeys.

  Two days later, Patrick journeyed to Perpignan, ‘where with great difficulty I found the garage & the dead 2 CV’. Later he was troubled by a fear lest the injured car was being ‘ostentatiously ignored’.

  The New Year of 1984 opened with Patrick ‘thinking, not exactly worrying, about this tale. Will solid uninterrupted gloom & disaster – ending in the pillory answer? And how can I set the scene & sum up for the next, if there is one?’ The tale was to become The Reverse of the Medal, which among other novel factors is a rarity (along with Post Captain) in that the greater part of it is set entirely on land. As it turns out, however, Jack’s ‘gloom and disaster’ are in fact punctuated with a great deal of humour and adventure.

  That night it may have been Patrick’s perturbed state of mind that provoked another of his recurrent eccentric fantasies:

  Dreams: a dog in a gaunt almost deserted Russian factory most pathetically eager to be adopted – the adopter a cynical brute. Another dog, in an hotel, v carefully carrying book on its head – book dropped, dog dreadfully worried – I tried putting it on its head again – no go – but the book did balance on its withers, & it walked carefully off.

  Two nights later Patrick’s anxious condition assumed a graver tinge: ‘A long, long, v long night, waking at 3 persuaded it was 7; wretched hours too, with the usual going-over of slights, humiliations, misdeeds, crimes, failures, rather than the pleasant dozing of the last few somewhat wakeful nights.’

  On 9 January came melancholy news: ‘James wrote to say that Barbara died just before Christmas.’ This was their old friend Barbara Puckridge, whom they had first come to know during their heady days driving ambulances in Chelsea at the height of the Blitz. She had been in hospital for some time undergoing successive operations, but the blow when it came was still a grievous one. Participants in the romantically adventurous days of their youth were slipping from the stage. Patrick wrote no more in his diary that day.

  Three days later he encountered another jarring intimation of mortality. His brother Bernard had arrived from Canada in London, where they arranged to meet. Patrick booked a table at Simpson’s in the Strand. Arrived early, he:

  was sitting in the bar when I saw an aged man coming down the stairs: it was Bun, strangely aged & changed & bent & deaf – he recognized me however. Then Fifi [Bun’s wife], amiable & proper. We had a pretty good traditional lunch, with rice-pudding, & then she went off to shop while Bun & I looked at George St & Marylebone Lane – Rothe’s [coffee-house] was still there, almost exactly the same.

  Patrick and Bernard had attended Marylebone Grammar School together during the academic year 1925–26, for which they clearly shared nostalgic memories. Given the extent to which critics have taken up Dean King’s influential though entirely imaginary picture of Patrick’s callous rejection of his Russ siblings in 1964, it is instructive to note the extent to which they continued close long after, corresponding and meeting whenever circumstances permitted,[fn12] and on occasions like this sharing cherished recollections of what were clearly common happy experiences.

  During 1984 Patrick continued work on The Reverse of the Medal, which by March found our two heroes firmly established ashore in England. As ever, he underwent periods of gloom, I suspect imperceptible in their effects to readers of the finished work. ‘I am much depressed by feeling unable to talk about the tale with M. Extorted praise however is worse than worthless & disapproval would stop me dead.’

  Even the most derogatory press review was as nothing in its effect on Patrick when compared with my mother’s occasional unexplained lack of enthusiasm. Although I do not recall being present at such discussions, the overriding impression remains that my mother’s views of Patrick’s writing were broadly conveyed by a form of osmosis, rather than overtly specific criticism. Fortunately, a month later her enthusiasm had revived: ‘I finished & typed Ch VI – rather short (9000 -) – M liked it. But now I am at a stand for details of imprisonment etc – can fake of course but should prefer correctness. M phoned L[ondon]L[ibrary], who will send a biog[raphy of Lord Cochrane].’

  On 26 April Patrick and my mother decided to undertake a bird-watching expedition in the Camargue. Next morning they drove away in good time, on arrival spending a couple of hours viewing a heronry. After that they booked in at an hotel, where they observed a stork and two flamingoes flying overhead. Unfortunately, the expedition was unexpectedly cut short:

  Then I said let us find the other heronry & look at the Rhone. We took the road to Le Sambuc & peering ahead at an intersection I did not see a car coming from the right – the collision sent us into a canal, the car on its side, water coming in fast – found the door (no safety belts D[eo] G[ratia]) – kind young man pulled M out & on to the bank – a long pause while a mad youth looked for M’s bag & papers & flung other things into the water & I rescued books & some Questar (carried set up, alas) – then v kind gendarmes, ambulance, Arles. M’s leg & hip extremely painful but no bones broken – hospital said ‘you can go.’ M consulted with them – human – I happened to have 300 francs in my wet pocket – taxi to Salin de G[rand] hotel – took us in, fed & clothed us with great kindness. Indeed kindness almost everywhere, even from the poor young Swiss people whose borrowed car I had spoilt, & their holiday.

  My mother was in great pain, and the doctor declared that they should remain in the hotel for the weekend. Fortunately, the food and service were excellent, but my mother continued suffering, having to be carried up and downstairs on a chair. The car was wrecked, but miraculously the insurance company in due course decided to pay up. However, my mother remained weak and suffering for the
remainder of May.

  Meanwhile Patrick gradually recovered the flow of his writing, though the occasional crisis of confidence manifested itself as ever in a disturbing dream:

  … I slept pill-less & dreamed wonders: a great English castle & then an unknown much-more-than-Dugommier[fn13] with a platform – a sheer drop of perhaps 1000’ to an estuary – the sea sparkling away on the L – a voice telling me about it in the silence – the horror of the void – creeping back from the edge.

  Apart from fear of literary failure, Patrick had throughout his adult life been assailed by dread of death. That December he would attain the biblical climacteric. He and my mother were constantly afflicted by differing ailments over the years, and how they attained the ages they eventually did appears to me near-miraculous.

  Much of the year was spent completing The Reverse of the Medal, while simultaneously conducting research into the life of Sir Joseph Banks – some of which found its way also into the novel. The latter required much more research than usual, moving as it did into largely new territory. The climax of the story is provided by poor Jack Aubrey’s innocent involvement in a major Stock Exchange swindle – the real culprits being his scapegrace father General Aubrey and his dubious associates. The model for this scandal was the historical trial in 1814 of the great frigate captain Lord Cochrane, whose guilt or innocence has been much canvassed by historians. It is unlikely that the truth will ever be established beyond cavil, but a cautious verdict would suggest that he was indeed duped by his co-defendants. What is beyond doubt is the shamefully prejudiced conduct of the trial judge, Lord Ellenborough.[3]

  Patrick read through voluminous printed works in the London Library, and conducted extensive research among original documents at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. In June he lamented: ‘2 pp: I struggle with the law. How I wish I could have used C[ochrane]’s own trial straight.’ In the event, he provides a colourful panorama of London life, ranging from a royal levee to Newgate Gaol and a thief-taker’s searches on the mudflats of the Thames. An elegant setting for several episodes is provided by Black’s Club, of which Aubrey and Maturin are members. There can be little doubt that by this is intended Brooks’s in St James’s Street,[fn14] to which club Patrick was in the process of being elected. On 13 June he attended a ‘vetting’ dinner arranged by his friend Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, and was duly elected in December. Henceforth he stayed regularly at the club during his visits to London, its elegant eighteenth-century architecture and gentlemanly atmosphere providing him with much valuable inspiration for his work.

  In August Patrick informed Richard Scott Simon that:

  The present novel, which I call The Reverse of the Medal (it deals with Aubrey’s downfall) is finished. There are a few changes to make, & Stuart Proffitt, who really is very helpful, is having my account of the trial vetted by someone at Oxford, and then, when Mary has bashed out a fair copy, you shall have it, probably some time in September.

  It was about this time that Richard Ollard retired as Patrick’s editor at Collins. Having turned sixty in the previous year, he now decided to withdraw with his wife Mary to Dorset, where he could concentrate on writing his own historical works. Over the years he had proved an invaluable adviser to Patrick, admiring his novels hugely, and continued as a friend whose literary and historical advice Patrick respected as he did that of few others. (Richard had recently arranged for Patrick to be sent the magnificent Latham and Matthews edition of Samuel Pepys’s diary, which afforded Patrick enormous pleasure for the rest of his life.) For a while there was some confusion at the publishers, with Christopher MacLehose and Stuart Proffitt overlapping in handling Patrick’s work, until the latter succeeded permanently as his editor. Proffitt was as assiduously committed to Patrick’s work as had been Richard. Since his texts tended to require little editing beyond correction of minor narrative inconsistencies and the like, it soon became apparent that the change would make little difference to his relationship with his publisher.

  The finished version of The Reverse of the Medal was received with more than usual enthusiasm at Collins. MacLehose, with whom Patrick enjoyed an uneven relationship, wrote warmly:

  … first, let me thank you for another enchanted journey with Maturin and Aubrey. One lives on a different plane while reading your books, but this one transported me further than any before so far as I remember. It is a beautifully made, beautifully told story and it will not surprise you that it moved me to tears on four occasions – I have a mind to have Maturin’s walk to Ashgrove Cottage hand-set in Monotype Garamond and framed.

  Although much of the framework of the latter part of the book is skilfully adapted from Cochrane’s unhappy experience, one senses the presence to an unusual extent of Patrick’s own erratic life story. First, of course, is the heartless damage inflicted on his guileless son by General Aubrey, ‘a really dangerous parent’ whose ‘tall bony figure’ and hopeless irresponsibility recall the harsh and feckless Dr Charles Russ – that terrifying bane of Patrick’s formative early days.

  Not all the real-life elements are unpleasant, however. The shop of the ‘French pastry-cook in Marylebone’, whose coffee Maturin recommends to the French agent Duhamel, must be Rothe’s coffee-house, patronized by Patrick and his brother Bun during their schooldays, which they had nostalgically revisited in January. Again, Stephen’s anguish at his discovery of the unexpected destruction of his familiar refuge at The Grapes in the liberties of the Savoy recalls the comparable wartime destruction of the house in Redcliffe Road where I believe Patrick spent rapturous months on first encountering his first wife Elizabeth.[fn15] I suspect, too, that the intensity of Stephen’s distress on learning of his wife Diana’s desertion may have its origins in Patrick’s acute fear, real or apprehended, lest my mother desert him for another about the time of their first coming together in 1940.[fn16]

  The ‘sperm-whale’s tooth’ presented to Jack by his long-lost African son Sam Panda was that treasured by Patrick from early years.[fn17] The original of the apiarist’s guide ‘Huber on Bees’, brought by Stephen in error for Gibbon’s philippic on the iniquity of lawyers, rested beside the table at which Patrick wrote in his little gallery at Collioure.[fn18]

  Much more remarkable in this respect is the almost magical extent to which he appears to have anticipated a future event, with which he was to become emotionally deeply involved – my trial for libel in 1989. While Jack Aubrey is blithely confident in the near-perfection of the English judicial system, Stephen Maturin’s estimate is grimly sceptical. Citing Gibbon’s scathing indictment of lawyers in a passage the historian reluctantly omitted from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he tries in vain to warn Jack of the dark complexity of legal procedures. That Patrick did not regard all lawyers as Machiavellian deceivers is illustrated by Jack’s counsel Mr Lawrence, an honourable and capable barrister. Both he and Stephen in vain warn Jack of the dangers facing him. Although English judicial procedure might indeed be preferable to that of many other countries, those inexperienced in the ways of the courts could have little awareness of its pitfalls – especially in a case like this, where the government of the day possessed a strong interest in securing a verdict:

  ‘I do not think the ministry set this matter on foot,’ said Lawrence. ‘That would be too gross even for [the Home Secretary] Sidmouth’s myrmidons; but I am quite sure they mean to take every advantage of the situation now it has arisen … although the English bar shines in comparison with all others, it has some members who are perfectly unscrupulous, able and unscrupulous: they go for the verdict, and be damned to the means. Pearce, who leads for the prosecution, is just such a man.’

  Above all:

  ‘… pray let him [Jack] know that Pearce will rake up anything and everything that may be to his disadvantage, anything that may lower him and through him his friends and connexions, and that the prosecution will have all the resources at the ministry’s command to help in the raking.’

  The e
vent confirms Lawrence’s worst fears. The judge, Lord Quinborough, is:

  a heavy, glum, dissatisfied man whose thick insensitive face had a wart on its left cheek; the judge had a loud, droning voice and he very often raised it, interrupting one counsel or another; Stephen had rarely seen so much self-complacency, hardness, and want of common feeling together under a single wig.

  Pearce, the prosecuting counsel, a ‘would-be handsome young man, smirking at the judge’, employs every specious slur to blackguard Jack’s character and career, while clearly enjoying a private understanding with His Lordship, who makes scant attempt to conceal his partiality.

  Court procedure appears designed to assist the prosecution, with Pearce’s lengthy concluding speech followed immediately by the judge’s three-hour hostile summing-up. When Maturin questions the judge’s intelligence, Lawrence explains that:

  He was an intelligent man. You rarely come to be a judge without having been reasonably intelligent at one time. But like many others he has grown stupid on the bench, stupid and froward and overbearing and inordinately self-important … he is, as you know, a roaring High Tory and the present chance of destroying Radicals was nectar to him – and although he was intolerably prosy and repetitious he did do all he wanted to do.

  Patrick himself had no personal quarrel with the English judicial system. His only direct experience arose from brief attendance at custody proceedings some forty years earlier. Although the judgment of the court was adverse to his application, he accepted that it had been fairly arrived at. A close friend, Nigel Curtis-Raleigh, was a judge, and again I never heard Patrick consider him other than conscientious and fair-minded in his office. His remarkable understanding of how prejudicial proceedings may become when powerful government interests are at stake arose in part from meticulous research, but above all from his remarkably keen perception of human affairs.