Stephen was greeted with the utmost kindness at the Grapes. His little black god-daughters, Sarah and Emily, had so shot up, had grown so leggy, that he did not have to
bend to kiss them, and both were in fine spirits, since they had spent the last half hour in the company of William Reade, Stephen’s supper guest, who had shown them the Royal Navy’s version of Puss in the Corner, a more complex and subtle game than was usual in the Liberties.
But Mrs. Broad, though as welcoming as could be, was very much shocked by Stephen’s appearance, which indeed would have done no credit to a hedge-creeper. ‘Well, as for that Killick and his capers,’ she said when all was explained, ‘don’t he wish he may have anything at all to eat or drink in this house, to serve the Doctor so. And I shall tell him, ho, ho, don’t you fear – I shall let him know.’
Her natural good humour returned, nevertheless, as she laid out his fine London clothes –
black, elegant severity and gleaming Hessian boots – and it was in this splendour that he sat in the parlour while the little girls nervously showed him their copy-books, their sums, and their geographical exercises, with maps. In faltering voices, prompting one another, they recited mediocre verse in English and French, and with more confidence, showed their knitting, sewing and sampler-work. They were not very clever girls, but they were wonderfully neat – their copy-books would have pleased a fastidious engraver – and they were most affectionate to one another, to Mrs. Broad and to Stephen. There was one thing that did puzzle him, however: they were still capable of speaking both lower-deck English (now somewhat tinged with Billingsgate, where they did much of the Grape’s shopping) and the quarterdeck variety, slipping effortlessly from one to the other; yet neither could manage even tolerable French.
But it was at supper-time that they showed their real, and very considerable talent. Mrs.
Broad was away with her cook, cook-maids, tapsters and waiters looking after the ordinary occupations of a fairly busy inn, and Stephen and Reade played backgammon, drinking brown sherry and discussing the pitiful state of their fellow-sailors in a dissolving Navy, when Sarah and Emily came in, wearing long aprons, and laid the table.
A pause. ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please,’ they cried, placing chairs. Stephen was draped in a remarkably broad napkin: Reade was allowed to look after himself.
The first dish was simply fresh, perfectly fresh green peas, to be eaten with a spoon: then, borne in with some anxiety, a great oval plate sizzling at the edges and containing filleted soles, lobster claws and tails, with here and there a great fat mussel, the whole bathing deep in cream.
Sarah filled the plates; Emily poured the wine, a pale golden hock.
‘Oh my dears,’ cried Stephen, having gazed, smelt and tasted, ‘what a sinful delight! What a glorious dish! My dears, how I do congratulate you both!”
‘I ask no better in all my days,’ said William Reade. ‘No, not even if I hoist the union at the main.’
‘I hope you had a hand in it?’ asked Stephen.
‘Sir,’ said Emily, ‘Sarah and I did every last thing, except that Henry in the snug broke the claws with the side of his cleaver.’
‘Well, I am heartily glad of it. You are dear good girls, and uncommon talented. Bless you both.’
Drinking tea with Sir Joseph in his very comfortable house in Shepherd’s Market could not conceivably be compared to supping at the Grapes: but there was a pleasure, though of a wholly different kind. Blaine, passing by Somerset House, had looked in to see the
conscientious man who received and looked after specimens sent to the Royal Society to be kept for members – both Blaine and Stephen were Fellows – and he had brought Christine Wood’s parcel, addressed to Dr. Maturin, back with him. It was the skeleton, very delicately dissected and reassembled, of his potto, a rare and curious little West African creature, nominally one of the primates, though quiet, slow, harmless, and remarkably affectionate. Stephen had been much attached to his potto, and now he opened the case, gazing upon the anatomy with a mixture of friendship and scientific interest – the very singular formation of the index-finger and of the lower thorax were strangely moving all over again, but even more so the strong link of affection.
‘I believe you do not take sugar?’ asked Sir Joseph.
‘No sugar at all, I thank you,’ replied Stephen, closing the box and bracing himself for immediate close attention, persuaded by Blaine’s expression and attitude that he was coming to the important matter. Yet to his surprise Sir Joseph went on in a falsely casual tone, ‘I gather you are well acquainted with the Duke of Clarence, with Prince William?’
Stephen bowed: he had treated Prince William several times, but he was not a physician who discussed his patients. Somewhat embarrassed Blaine went on, ‘I happened to run into him at the Admiralty this morning. Some extraordinarily indiscreet person had told him that the hydrographical voyage was to go ahead, with Captain Aubrey in command -just that: no mention of anything remotely political. The Prince, as I dare say you know, has an almost reverential awe of Captain Aubrey – too great a respect to present himself unasked, though ordinarily he is not at all shy, not at all backward in such matters.’
‘A bounding, confident, foul-mouthed scrub,’ said Maturin: but very low.
‘. . . and he was intimate with Nelson, who liked him well. However, the point is this: he has a son.’
‘I have seen the little FitzClarences, and an ill-bred set of swabs they are: which is odd, when you consider what a dear, cheerful – and indeed beautiful – woman their mother is.
‘You know Mrs Jordan?’
‘Moderately well: and I have often seen her on the stage.’
‘But it is not one of those that I have in mind. It is a boy by another woman, a child he does not openly acknowledge, perhaps from fear of angering Mrs. Jordan, a son he calls Horatio Fitzroy Hanson. He is about fourteen or fifteen: he has decent manners, a tolerable education, and I think he is the only one of his children that Prince William really likes. Horatio, I ought to say, has no idea of this relationship: the acquaintance, or more than acquaintance, with Clarence – Uncle William – is perfectly acknowledged, but solely on the basis of his being a former shipmate of the boy’s putative father. The mother, I am sorry to say, was rather unstable, and she went off to Canada when Horatio was two or three: his grandfather, a severe rural dean, brought him up. Clarence is all you say and I am aware that neither you nor Captain Aubrey could esteem him: but he does nevertheless have some respectable qualities: he is affectionate, fairly generous, and good to former shipmates. Furthermore, he fairly worships the service; and he has the greatest respect for Captain Aubrey. In short he desires me to ask you to use your influence with Aubrey to have the boy admitted to his midshipmen’s berth for this coming voyage.’
‘Are you prepared to tell me any more about Horatio’s parentage?’
‘Mr. Hanson, his nominal father, was a sea-officer: he and Prince William served together in the West Indies. Horatio’s mother was staying in Kingston with relatives. She and Mr.
Hanson became engaged: they nevertheless quarrelled furiously. But there is said to have been a more or less irregular marriage. In any case Hanson was lost in the Serapis and his wife went home, pregnant. I have this from three sources, none of them capable of providing a consistent or even a coherent account. The only thing I know is that Clarence provided consolation and that he is persuaded the child is his.’
‘I am sure Jack will at least look at the boy, if only for his Christian name. I shall speak of him when I write to tell about the voyage: perhaps it would be better not to mention the alleged connexion. But tell me, did the extraordinarily indiscreet person who told the duke that the hydrographical voyage was to go ahead have any grounds for his assertion?’
‘Oh, certainly … I am so sorry. I should have told you that at the very beginning: after all, it concerns you more than anyone else. I grow sadly muddled these days – as though you must know it by intuition – and then I will admit that the endless uninformed arguments for and against the project, topped by Clarence’s indecently prolonged and public harangue about this boy, quite upset me. Yes, yes: you shall go: but I must warn you, Stephen, that now the war is over, rigid economy is the order of the day, and you will not be furnished with anything like the means you carried to Peru.’