‘At half-past two o’clock on Monday, sir, if you please.’
* * *
At twenty-nine minutes past two on Monday, Lucy tapped at their sitting-room door and said, ‘If you please, sir, there is a man in black downstairs with a young gentleman. Shall I show them up? And Doctor, the apothecary asks if you could do with another bottled asp.’
Jack said, ‘Pray show them up.’ Stephen said, ‘By all means: let him send it round.’
The visitors walked in. Jack said, ‘Mr. Hanson, pray take a seat,’ and to the other, a discreet upper servant, ‘I shall probably be about an hour with Mr. Hanson: do you choose to wait in the snug, or shall I send him home in a chaise or a hackney?’
‘I had rather wait, sir, if you please.’
The boy, a slim, fair, rather good-looking youth of about fifteen, was pitifully nervous – he also seemed to have at least the beginning of a cold – and he watched the disappearance of his only ally with a barely-concealed anguish: but he gathered his courage and addressing Jack he said, ‘Sir, my Uncle William sends you his good-day: he told me that you had very, very kindly agreed to receive me, to judge . . .’ he faltered, but then began again, ‘. . . to judge whether I might be admitted to your midshipmen’s berth.’
‘So I did,’ said Jack, as kindly as he could. ‘And first I should like to ask you some questions to get an idea of how far you have advanced. Since you have not yet been to sea I shall not trouble you with sails and rigging, but I dare say you already know that the mathematics are of the first importance to a sea-officer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You know the elements of arithmetic, I am sure; but have you learnt any algebra and geometry?’
‘A little, sir. I can manage the quadratic equation fairly well, and I am tolerably forward in Euclid.’
‘Could you define a hypotenuse offhand?’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Horatio, smiling for the first time.
Jack drew the familiar figure and said, ‘Now tell me how it can be shown that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, will you?’
Horatio did so, his voice growing clearer and more conn-dent; and Stephen’s attention wandered. Remotely he heard the boy tell the nature of a secant, a cosecant, a tangent and cotangent, a sine and its fellow; and when next he took notice they were talking with real animation about such astronomy as Horatio and his grandfather’s curate, Mr. Walker, had managed to accomplish with a home-made refracting instrument just powerful enough for the moons of Jupiter, the delightful moons of Jupiter, on a clear and moonless night.
Stephen let his eyelids droop.
‘Sir,’ said Horatio gently in Stephen’s ear, laying a hand upon his arm. ‘I believe the Captain is speaking to you.’
Stephen was not much given to lying, but he was as reluctant as any other man to admit that he had been asleep: he now strongly affirmed ‘that he had been meditating on some of the Pythagoreans’ wilder statements.’
‘Doctor,’ said Jack, ‘may I beg you to address Mr. Hanson in French and Latin? Perhaps Greek would be coming it rather high, for a sea-officer. Do you know any Greek, Mr.
Hanson?’
‘No, sir,’ said Mr. Hanson, with a particularly charming and happy smile. ‘Only the alphabet: but I was going to start next year with Mr. Walker. Greek, and even Hebrew.’
While Stephen and Hanson were prosing away in French and Latin according to the curious English pronunciation, Jack made a rough draft of his promised letter. He had almost finished it when he heard the sounds of a good-natured conclusion on the other side of the room. ‘There,’ he said, standing up, ‘I have almost reached the end, and I shall finish when the Doctor has told me what he thinks: so if you would like to walk about for
half an hour – the river and its shipping is just down the way – I shall put my draft into proper shape for your Uncle William – what is that infernal row?’
It was Sarah and Emily, back from school and over-excited by their new boots: they burst in, kissed Stephen, kissed Jack, and then gazed at the wholly unexpected Horatio, who gazed back with at least equal surprise.
‘My dears,’ said Stephen, ‘this is Mr. Hanson, who may be going to sea: Mr. Hanson, these are my god-daughters, Sarah and Emily. And since you have half an hour to spare, I am sure they would show you the delights of the river, which they know intimately well.’
‘How they have shot up,’ said Jack, as the boots went clattering down. ‘Dear little souls: I remember them as poor puling little objects, fit only for bait. Now I must hurry with my fair copy – but first tell me what you think of the boy.’
‘He seems to me an agreeable, ingenuous, well-bred youth: his French is well above the English average, and his Latin is acceptable.’
‘I am very glad of that. I tell his uncle that he has a surprising grasp of mathematics, particularly those applied to navigation and astronomy. He already has the basis of a sea-officer. He takes a real pleasure – more than pleasure -in those studies, and I say that subject to the ordinary allowance of a hundred a year and a proper outfit, I should be happy to take him, all the more since you have said that his French is quite good and his Latin passable. But before binding myself fully I feel that a few words with His Highness are called for: so since I am cruelly pressed for time, I beg for an early interview tomorrow morning. Do you think that covers the ground?”
‘Admirably, my dear. While you write it fair I shall see what we are to have for dinner.’
It was a pair of fowls. But before they could be put down to the fine bright fire, Horatio and the little girls came back, obviously great friends. Horatio hurried upstairs. ‘I do hope, sir, that I am neither early nor late? My Uncle has always said that the Navy absolutely insisted upon punctuality.’
‘No,’ said Jack, ‘you are to the minute. Now here is a letter for your Uncle: in it I say that as far as I am concerned I should be happy to have you aboard.’ The boy flushed, and his chin trembled. ‘But of course, the final decision rests with him. If he agrees with my conditions, I have suggested an appointment for the Portsmouth coach on Saturday. Here is the letter: it also says that I should like to wait on him early tomorrow morning. Perhaps he would send a servant to appoint the time? Now cut along – you must not keep him from his dinner.’
Early the next morning at Fladong’s hotel Clarence was waiting at the top of the stairs, and he saw with some concern that Captain Aubrey’s face, usually brown from the wind and the sun, was now a disagreeable yellow, his eyes dark-rimmed, and his expression, though properly deferential, by no means as amiable as it had been yesterday: this was the result of a late leave-taking feast with old shipmates and measureless wine, but the cause did not occur to the Duke, for whom Jack Aubrey was not only one of the most successful fighting captains but also the very type of virtue. ‘Pray come in and take a seat,’
he said; and then, after a pause, ‘I cannot tell you how your letter pleased me: but may I ask whether you choose to take him?’
‘Well, sir, he seems to me a thoroughly good boy, and I should be happy to take him: but on condition that he is treated as an ordinary reefer. I should deplore the presence of any senior officer when he comes aboard.’ (Clarence had long since reached flag-rank.) ‘It
might have an appearance of favouritism, which is very much disliked in a company of young men who usually have little influence and less money, and who are likely to lead the favoured youth -particularly a first-voyager – a miserable time of it. And although there are some eminent exceptions’ – with a bow – ‘I have very rarely known a privileged midshipman of that kind make a good officer. And in passing I may say that I shall warn him very strongly against the least hint of influential friends or connexions.’
‘I entirely agree with you, sir,’ said Clarence. ‘I myself felt the weight of influence very strongly, and many, many a time did I tell myself that I should never have been made post without I was King George’s son.’
‘Oh, sir, I am sure you should,’ said Jack, in answer to a singularly touching look. ‘At one time we were alongside Pegasus in the West Indies, and I never beheld a frigate in better order.’