Post Captain (Aubrey & Maturin, #2)

by Patrick O'Brian

At this moment the ship of the line fired a gun, followed by three blue lights that soared and burst with a ghostly effulgence in the dawn: before the last dropping trail of sparks had drifted away downwind she sent up a succession of rockets, a pale, isolated Guy Fawkes’ night far out in the sea.

she seemed very young for her twenty-seven years. There was nothing in the least degree affected or kittenish about this: rather a kind of ethereal quality – the quality of a sacrificial object. Iphigeneia before the letter.

‘Thou looks’t like Antichrist in that lewd hat,’ she said in a sombre voice, for the hounds had lost their fox and the only tolerable-looking man had vanished.

And then I fear he may not attend to the fifth commandment quite as he should.’ The girls’ faces took on an inward look as they privately ran over the Decalogue: in order of intelligence a little frown appeared on each as its owner reached the part about Sunday travelling, and then cleared as they carried on to the commandment the Admiral had certainly intended.

‘I can just see them with their stockings out at heel,’ cried Frances, with a coarse whoop, ‘pegging away with their needles – “Doctor, may I trouble you for the blue worsted? After you with the thimble, if you please.” Ha, ha, ha, ha!’

‘It would be an ungrateful instrument that fell off, having been decorated by Miss Williams. We were admiring the landscape with the pagoda this morning, were we not, Stephen?’

Jack seemed wholly taken up with Mrs Williams’s account of the planting of the shrub, a minute and circumstantial history.

Sophia did not really care for hunting: she liked the gallops, but she found the waiting about dull and she minded terribly about the poor fox.

A quick drumming of hooves and Diana came into the field. Her whole being was concentrated on the fence and what lay beyond it, and she saw them only a vague group muddling in a gate. She was sitting as straight and supple as if she had been riding for no more than half an hour: she was part of her horse, completely unaware of herself. She went straight at the fence, gathered her horse just so, and with a crash and a spray of mud they were over. Her form, her high-held head, her contained joy, competent, fierce gravity, were as beautiful as anything Jack or Stephen had ever seen. She had not the slightest notion of it, but she had never looked so well in her life.

‘Good morning, Villiers. You are late. You are very late.’ ‘It is the one advantage there is in being a woman. You do know I am a woman, Maturin?’ ‘I am obliged to suppose it, since you affect to have no notion of time – cannot tell what o’clock it is. Though why the trifling accident of sex should induce a sentient being, let alone such an intelligent being as you, to waste half this beautiful clear morning, I cannot conceive. Come, let me help you to mount.

I am not the first man to say that wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas. Far from it. It is a commonplace.’ ‘As far as my aunt is concerned you are certainly the first man who ever used such an expression in public.’

‘I am not in the least degree interested in women as such,’ said Stephen. ‘Only in persons.

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Diana coldly. ‘I thought it was the horse.’

where taste, figure and carriage are equal, a woman who can spend fifty guineas on her dress will look better than one who can only spend ten pounds.

They offer what they call friendship or some stuff of that kind – the name don’t matter – and all they want in return for this great favour is your heart, your life, your future, your – I will not be coarse, but you know very well what I mean. There is no friendship in men:

you are arguing from the particular to the general: you have met some men who wish to take advantage of you, and you go too far. Not all French waiters have red hair.’ ‘They all have red hair somewhere about them, and it shows sooner or later. But I do believe you are an exception, Maturin,

if I cannot find a husband by then, I shall . . . And where can one be found in this howling wilderness? Do I disgust you very much? I mean to put you off, you know.’

‘Yes, I am aware of your motions, Villiers. You do not disgust me at all – you speak as a friend. You hunt; and your chase has a beast in view.’

‘I am not difficult. He must have some money, of course – love in a cottage be damned.

This talk of friendship deceives neither of us; and yet it does exist, even on her side, I believe. My position would be the most humiliating in the world but for the fact that she is not so clever as she thinks: her theory is excellent, but she has not the control of her pride or her other passions to carry it into effect. She is cynical, but not nearly cynical enough, whatever she may say. If she were, I should not be obsessed.

Long before they walked into Thacker’s, the naval coffee-house, they were far back in their old easy ways, talking without the least constraint about the sea, the service, the possibility of migrant birds navigating by the stars at night, of an Italian violin that Jack was tempted to buy, and of the renewal of teeth in elephants.

Any innocent pleasure is a real good: there are not so many of them.’

You have a singular gift for putting me at a disadvantage, Villiers.’

Ignorant voracity – a wingless vulture – can soar only into the depths of ignominy.’

If you think that just because I have let you kiss me once or twice – if you think that just because you have come here when I have been ready to fling myself down the well or play the fool to get away from this odious daily round – nothing but a couple of toothless servants in the house – that you are my lover and I am your mistress, you are wrong. I never have been your mistress.’

‘I know,’ said Stephen. ‘I desire no explanation; I assume no rights. Compulsion is the death of friendship, joy.’ A pause. ‘Will you give me something to drink, Villiers my dear?’ ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she cried, with a ludicrous automatic return of civility. ‘What may I offer you? Port? Brandy?’ ‘Brandy, if you please. Listen,’ he said, ‘did you ever see a tiger?’

‘You are hot, thirsty: you must try a pear – it will keep the humours in motion.’

he was intelligent, comforting and wise, and he knew that he might as well have been talking to his mule.

the malady was called solis deprivatio.’

My dear Stephen, How shabbily you treat your friends – all these days without a sign of life. It is true I was horribly disagreeable when last you did me the pleasure of calling. Please forgive me. It was the east wind, or original sin, or the full moon, or something of that kind. But I have found some curious Indian butterflies – just their wings – in a book that belonged to my father. If you are not too tired, or bespoke, perhaps you might like to come and see them this evening. D. V.

‘Good night, Villiers,’ he said. ‘I thank you for your note.’ ‘I love the way you say good night, Stephen,’ she said, smiling. She was obviously in spirits, certainly in high good looks. ‘Are you not amazed to see me here?’ ‘Moderately so.’ ‘All the servants are out. How formal you are, coming to the front door! I am so happy to see you. Come into my lair.

And what shall I do? I shall have no one to talk to, no one to misuse.’ ‘Will you not?’ ‘Have I made you very unhappy, Stephen?’ ‘You have treated me like a dog at times, Villiers.’

‘I am pitifully weak with you, Diana, as you know very well,’ he said. ‘I came slowly over Polcary, rehearsing the words in which I should tell you I had come to break, and that I was happy to do so in kindness and friendship, with no bitter words to remember. I cannot do so, I find.’ ‘Break? Oh dear me, that is a word we must never use.’ ‘Never.’

I have neither remarked this myself nor found it in any author, but a small temptation, almost an un-temptation, can be more dominant than a great one.

The drum of hooves, Diana’s voice calling, ‘Ride on, Aubrey. Ride on, I say. I must speak to Maturin,’ and she reined in beside him. ‘I must speak to you, Maturin. Stephen, would you leave and not say good-bye to me?’ ‘Will you not let me go, Diana?’ he said, looking up, his eyes filling with tears. ‘No, no, no,’ she cried. ‘You must not leave me – go, yes go to France – but write to me, write to me, and come back.’ She gripped him hard with her small hand, and she was away, the turf flying behind her horse.

the sailor, at sea (his proper element), lives in the present. There is nothing he can do about the past at all; and, having regard to the uncertainty of the omnipotent ocean and the weather, very little about the future.

I find that you yourself are thin. Nay, cadaverous,

though he felt that resentment might not be far away.

She had heard of castles in Spain, but she could not remember whether they were good or bad: they were certainly one or the other. Probably good, seeing that Lord Melville was so affable. Oh yes, very good – certainly very good.

Stephen’s face rarely betrayed much emotion, but her effusive welcome made him stretch his eyes:

‘When shall I see you again? Will you call at Bruton Street tomorrow morning? I shall be alone. You may take me into the park, and to look at the shops.’

No, you must certainly consult your safety: of course you must consult your safety. In any case, I shall no longer be in town.’

‘I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.’

‘It is dreadful to be unkind: one keeps remembering it.’

Stephen looked at her with deep affection: she was a lovely creature, unhappy, with a line across that broad forehead; but he said nothing.

‘That is a recommendation, to be sure; but I am already acquainted with Mr Canning.’

– I am more deliberate in my motions than you sanguine, briny creatures.

As for her, I am at a loss – this kindness and then the turning away as though from an enemy.

I had never felt jealousy before this, and although all knowledge of the world, all experience, literature, history, common observation told me of its strength, I had no sense of its true nature at all. Gnosce teipsum – my dreams appal me.

I felt a longing for the sea. It has a great cleanliness. There are moments when everything on land seems to me tortuous, dark, and squalid;