Book 11 - The Reverse Of The Medal

by Patrick O'Brian

  'Why do I feel such an intense pleasure, such an intense satisfaction?' asked Stephen. For some time he searched for a convincing reply, but finding none he observed 'The fact is that I do.' He sat on as the sun's rays came slowly down through the trees, lower and lower, and when the lowest reached a branch not far above him it caught a dewdrop poised upon a leaf. The drop instantly blazed crimson, and a slight movement of his head made it show all the colours of the spectrum with extraordinary purity, from a red almost too deep to be seen through all the others to the ultimate violet and back again. Some minutes later a cock pheasant's explosive call broke the silence and the spell and he stood up.

  At the edge of the wood the blackbirds were louder still, and they had been joined by blackcaps, thrushes, larks, monotonous pigeons, and a number of birds that should never have sung at all. His way now led him through ordinary country, field after field, eventually reaching Jack's woods, where the honey buzzards had once nested. But it was ordinary country raised to the highest power: the mounting sun shone through a faint veil with never a hint of glare, giving the colours a freshness and an intensity Stephen had never seen equalled. The green world and the gentle, pure blue sky might just have been created; and as the day warmed a hundred scents drifted through the air.

  'Returning thanks at any length is virtually impossible,' he reflected, sitting on a stile and watching two hares at play, sitting up and fibing at one another, then leaping and running and leaping again. 'How few manage even five phrases with any effect. And how intolerable are most dedications too, even the best. Perhaps the endless repetition of flat, formal praise'—for the Gloria was still running in his head—'is an attempt at overcoming this, an attempt at expressing gratitude by another means. I shall put this thought to Jack,' he said, having considered for a moment. The hares raced away out of eight and he walked on, singing in a harsh undertone 'Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus altissimus' until a cuckoo called away on his left hand: cuckoo, cuckoo, loud and clear, followed by a cackling laugh and answered by a fainter cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo far over on the right.

  His happiness sank at once and he walked on with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back. He was now close to Jack's land: one more field and a lane and then the Ashgrove woods began, on poor spewy ground, with the vile lead-mines and their ancient heaps of spoil among them: then came Jack's plantations, dwarvish still and much gnawed by rabbits, hares, deer, and a large variety of caterpillars, and at last the cottage came in sight. By now the day had woken up entirely to ordinary life; the silence had long since gone and even if no cuckoo had called cuckold there would still have been nothing left of that feeling of imminent miracle; it was now no more than an exceptionally pleasant, summery day in spring.

  He was approaching the house from the back and he saw it to no great advantage. Jack had bought the place when he was poor and he had enlarged it when he was rich; the result was an inharmonious jumble, with few of the advantages of a house and none of what meagre conveniences a cottage might have to offer. But at least it had glorious stables. Not only did Jack Aubrey love hunting the fox, but he was persuaded that he was as good a judge of horseflesh as any man in the Navy List, and when he came home from the Mauritius campaign deep-laden with prize-money he laid out a noble yard with a double coach-house and accommodation for hacks and hunters on one side and a range of loose-boxes to house the beginnings of a racing-stable on the other, with tack-rooms at the short ends, forming an elegant quadrangle of rosy brick trimmed with Portland stone and crowned by a tower with a blue-dialled clock in it.

  Stephen was not surprised to find the greater part shut up, since the hunters and the running-horses had disappeared as soon as Jack's misfortunes began, but the absence of any other creatures, of the cart and the low-slung gig in which Sophie went abroad was harder to understand. So, when he came to it by way of the kitchen-garden, was the silence of the house. Jack had three children and a mother-in-law, and silence was unnatural: yet never a sound emerged from the doors or windows, and an uneasiness came upon him, an uneasiness strengthened by the fact that all the doors and all the windows were open, and not only open but partly dismantled, which gave the house a blind, ravaged, gap-toothed, desolate air. The silence also reeked of turpentine, conceivably used as a disinfectant. He had known plagues in which entire households were struck down overnight: the cholera morbus, too. 'God between us and evil,' he muttered.

  A cheer from far away changed the current of his mind, and some moments later this was followed by the peculiarly English sound of a bat striking a ball and then by further cries. He passed quickly through what Jack called the rose-garden—lucus a non lucendo—through the shrubbery to the edge of the hill and there below him on a broad meadow was a game of cricket all laid out, the fielders in their places, keenly attentive to the bowler as he went through his motions, the sound of the stroke again, the batsmen twinkling between the wickets, fielders darting for the ball, tossing it in, and then the whole pattern taking shape again, a formal dance, white shirts on the green.

  He walked down the slope, and as he came nearer he recognized the players, or at least all the batting side, and some of their opponents. Plaice and Bonden were in and Captain Babbington, formerly one of Jack's midshipmen, then one of his lieutenants and now commander of the Tartarus sloop of eighteen guns, was bowling to his old shipmates as though he meant to carry their legs away as well as their stumps. For his part Plaice was content to stop every straight ball and leave the rest alone, but Bonden had his eye well in and he hit almost everything with equal fury. He had scored fourteen runs off the present over, and now the last ball came down, pitched rather short and outside the off stump: he gave it an almighty blow, but he had misjudged the rise, and instead of skimming over the fielders' heads the ball rose in a most surprising way, like a mortar bomb or a rocket, vanishing almost entirely.

  Three fielders ran in Stephen's direction, all gazing up and spreading their hands, while others called 'Heads, heads!' or 'Stand from under'. Stephen's mind was far away: he had noticed neither the stroke nor the flight of the ball, but one of the few things he had learnt at sea—learnt painfully and thoroughly—was that Stand from under usually preceded, but only just preceded, a downpour of boiling pitch, or the fall of a very heavy block, or that of a needle-pointed marline-spike, and he hurried anxiously away, crouching, with his hands protecting his head, an unlucky move that brought him into collision with one fielder who was running backwards and with another already poised where the ball was about to come down. They fell in a confused heap from which he was extracted amidst cries of 'It's the Doctor,' 'Are you hurt, sir?' and 'Why can't you look where you are a-coming to, you clumsy ox?'—this to the Tartarus's yeoman of the sheets, who had held the catch in spite of everything and who rose through the welter of limbs, triumphantly holding it up.

  'Well, Stephen,' said Jack, leading him to the refreshment cart, after he had been brushed down and put to rights, with his wig set straight on his head, 'so you have come down by the night coach, I find: how glad I am you found a place. I did not look to see you till tomorrow, or I should have left a note. You must have been quite amazed to find the house all ahoo. Will you take a can of beer, or should you prefer cold punch?'

  'Would there be any coffee, at all? I missed my breakfast.'

  'Missed your breakfast? God's my life, how very shocking. Let us walk up and brew a pot—there are five wickets to fall, and Plaice and Killick will stick there like limpets: we have plenty of time.'

  'Where is Sophie?' asked Stephen.

  'She is not here!' cried Jack. 'She is away, gone to Ireland with the children and her mother—Frances is having a baby. Ain't it amazing? I looked pretty blank when I reached the house and found no family at all, I can tell you. Nobody, and even old Bray down at the ale-house, toping. She had no idea we were in this hemisphere, even, but she is leaving the children and posting back directly: with any luck we shall see her on Tuesday, or even Mo
nday.'

  'I hope so, indeed.'

  'Lord, Stephen, how I look forward to it,' said Jack, laughing at the prospect; and then after they had been walking for a few moments, 'But in the meanwhile, here we are all a-high-lone, a parcel of poor miserable bachelors. Luckily the Tartarus is in, to keep up our spirits, and there are so many old Surprises here and in Pompey that by including the youngsters and even your Padeen, God help us, we were able to get up a team to play them, although Mowett and Pullings had to go up to town to see the publisher—you only just missed them, which was a great pity, for two men in a higher state of nervous tremor I have never seen, and they would have profited from one of your comfortable slime-draughts. Still, a team we have, and the Goat and Compasses is going to send our dinner out to the field; you would not believe how well the Goat cooks venison—it eats as tender as veal. Look, Stephen, you see this corner of the wood and the shrubbery? I mean to cut the ground right back so that the new wing shall have a terrace and a fine stretch of grass. A lawn, if you understand me. I have always wanted a lawn; and perhaps I might be luckier with grass than with flowers.'

  'So there is to be a new wing?'

  'Oh Lord yes! We were most horribly cramped, you know; and with three children and a mother-in-law who often comes to stay it was like living in a cutter, all hugger-mugger, cheek by jowl, fourteen inches to a hammock, no more. And Sophie said that without more cupboards, she really could not go on. There is Dray, turning into the yard. The gig, there! The gig ahoy! I sent him into Portsmouth for the newspapers.'

  The gig wheeled about. 'How are we doing, sir?' cried the one-legged seaman as he drove in across the sacred gravel and handed out The Times, touching his forehead to Stephen with the other hand.

  'Forty-eight for five,' said Jack. 'We shall wipe Tartarus's eye, with any luck. Cut along down: I will put the gig away.'

  Dray fastened his wooden stump, unshipped for the drive, and pegged away down the slope as fast as ever he could go; for although his playing days were over, he was a most ardent critic. The gig itself scarcely needed putting away. It was attached to a very short-legged, short-sighted, deaf, meek animal of uncertain age carefully chosen for Sophie, who feared and disliked horses, as well she might, having been made to ride an iron-mouthed biter when she was far too young and having seen various hunters break her husband's ribs and collar-bones, while the running horses might have run off with her daughters' portions, had the capital not been tied up. The present animal, Moses, walked quietly towards the yard, peering in its purblind way at Jack as he unfolded The Times to reach the financial page. Still reading, Jack opened the door of a palatial loose-box: Stephen cast off the gig, Moses walked in, lay down, uttered a deep sigh, and closed his eyes.

  'It is even better than I had thought,' said Jack, and his shining face was younger by a good ten years. 'How I hope you profited by what I said.'

  'Sure, I took notice of your advice,' replied Stephen, with no particular emphasis, and Jack knew that he should learn no more.

  'We shall certainly have a really spacious terrace, perhaps with fountains. And there is a good deal to be said for a billiard-room too, on days when it is raining very hard,' said Jack. He led the way to the kitchen, opened the door of the little stove and plied the bellows till the charcoal glowed almost white. 'You must forgive the smell of paint,' he said, fetching down the coffee-mill, 'we laid on the first coat yesterday.' The rest of his words were drowned by the sound of grinding.

  They drank their grateful brew outside, walking up and down in the pure soft air while Stephen (an abstemious soul) ate two thin biscuits. When the pot was drunk, Jack cocked his ear to a roaring from the cricket-field. 'Perhaps we had better be going down again,' he said; and on the way, looking back in the narrow path, he said with a singularly sweet smile, 'Did I tell you I mean to buy Surprise? She can moor in a private ordinary at Porchester.'

  'Heavens, Jack! Is not this a very onerous undertaking? I seem to remember that Government gave twenty thousand pounds for the Chesapeake.'

  'Yes, but that was mostly to encourage others to go and do likewise. Selling out of the service is another thing. I doubt Surprise will fetch anything like so much.'

  'How does one set about buying a ship?'

  'You have to be there yourself, with cash in hand—well hit, sir, well hit.' Honey, a very dangerous crossbat smiter, had struck the ball in a high arc towards the approaching waggon from the Goat and Compasses, a waggon bearing the cricketers' dinner and drawn very deliberately by a pair of cows.

  Honey dealt with the next ball in much the same way, but a cunning Tartarus, the ship's corporal and up to any guardo move, had lingered there: he caught the ball—Honey was out, the innings was over, and in an excess of gaiety the men unharnessed the cows and ran the waggon at breakneck pace to their respective captains.

  'Padeen, now,' said Stephen in Irish to his servant, a huge, gentle Munsterman with a great stutter and small knowledge of any other language, 'and did you score a run, at all?'

  'I believe I did, sir dear; but then I ran back, and will it ever be counted to me, who can tell?'

  'Who indeed?' said Stephen, who had played the game once, in the Spice Islands, but who had never quite mastered the finer points; nor, for that matter, the coarser ones either.

  'Will your honour explain the Saxon game perhaps?'

  'I might,' said Stephen. 'When the venison pasty and sure it is the venison pasty of the world is finished I will ask the little captain to tell me its whole nature, he having played for the Gentlemen of Hampshire; and you are to understand that what Thomond is to the hurling, so Hampshire is to the cricket.'

  The little captain was Babbington, and he certainly knew a great deal about the game; but rarely, rarely would his shipmates, his former shipmates, his superior officer or his subordinates allow him to finish a sentence of his explanation. The seven pasties, the ten apple pies, the unlimited bread and cheese, and the four kegs of beer might have been expected to have a deadening effect, but no: every man there present and even some of the beardless miscellaneous such as youngsters and Marine Society boys had particular views on the origins of cricket, on what constituted fair bowling, on the number of stumps in their grandfather's time, and the best way of using a bat; and one of Babbington's own midshipmen quarrelled with his definition of a wide. Nobody contradicted Captain Aubrey, who in any case had gone to sleep leaning against the wheel of the cart with his hat over his face, but they wrangled so pertinaciously among themselves that Babbington invited Stephen to walk round the field to be shown the positions of square leg, long-stop, and mid on.

  He soon dismissed the remaining points of fielding and observed that tomorrow he hoped to show Stephen the difference between a slow, dead wicket and one upon which the ball would really turn.

  'You will never play all this afternoon and all tomorrow too, for God's love?' cried Stephen, shocked out of civility by the thought of such insufferable tedium drawn out to such unconscionable length.

  'Oh yes. It would have been a three-day match, only with Mrs Aubrey coming home, the house must be turned out, swabbed and flogged dry, and the paintwork touched up: still, with the long evenings I dare say we shall each have our two innings. But sir,' said Babbington after a silence, and in quite a different tone, 'one of the many reasons I was so glad to hear from the Captain that you was coming down was that I wanted to ask your advice.'

  'Ah?' said Stephen. In former times this had usually meant a question of a medical nature (his companions had once persuaded the very young and costive Babbington that he was going to have a baby) or a request for the loan of sums varying from sixpence to as much as half a guinea; but that was long ago, and now Babbington had a considerable estate, which included a parliamentary borough as rotten as a borough could well be; and it was no longer probable that he should think himself pregnant.

  'Well, the fact of the matter is, sir,' said Babbington, 'and not to put too fine a point on it—I mean, it is better to be pla
in. I dare say you remember that Admiral Harte cut up uncommon rough when he found me—well, kissing his daughter?'

  'I remember he made use of some illiberal expressions.'

  'He did worse than that. He shut Fanny up, and he beat her when he found we corresponded. And then he married her to Andrew Wray, swearing she should never go to a play or a ball unless she consented and that anyhow I was pursuing the Governor's daughter in Antigua—it was notorious—it was common knowledge. But, however, not to put too fine a point upon it, the fact of the matter is, when I brought Dryad home—you remember Dryad, sir? Such a weatherly ship—we happened to meet at a ball, and we found that we were as fond of one another as ever: more so, if possible.'

  'Listen, William my dear,' said Stephen, 'if you wish me to advise you to commit adultery . . .'

  'No, no, sir,' cried Babbington, smiling. 'No, I don't need any advice about adultery. My point is this—but perhaps I should explain the position. I dare say you knew the Admiral was uncommon rich? And everyone said what a prodigious heiress Fanny would be and what a fine match for Wray. But what they did not know was that he can scarcely get at a penny without her consent. And they don't agree—never have—how could they agree? As different as chalk and cheese. He is a wretched scrub of a fellow that drinks too much and cannot hold his wine, and he beats her: he told her openly he had only married her for her money. It seems he is in debt up to the ears: the bailiffs are often in the house, and they have to be staved off by one shift or another.'