‘Your cousin Sophia is intelligent.’
‘Do you really think so? Well, there is a sort of quickness, if you like; but she is a girl-we do not speak the same language. I grant you she is beautiful. She is really beautiful, but she knows nothing – how could she? – and I cannot forgive her her fortune. It is so unjust. Life
is so unjust.’ Stephen made no reply, but fetched her an ice. ‘The only thing a man can offer a woman is marriage,’ she went on. ‘An equal marriage. I have about four or five years, and 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.’
‘Well done, Maturin.’
‘You insist upon an equal marriage?’
‘At the very least. I shall despise a woman so poor-spirited, so wanting in courage, as to make a mésalliance. There was a smart little whippersnapper of an attorney in Dover that had the infernal confidence to make me an offer. I have never been so mortified in my life.
I had rather go to the stake, or look after the Teapot for the rest of my days.’
‘Define your beast.’
‘I am not difficult. He must have some money, of course – love in a cottage be damned. He must have some sense; he must not be actually deformed, nor too ancient. Admiral Haddock, for example, is beyond my limit, I do not insist upon it, but I should like him to be able to sit a horse and not fall off too often; and I should like him to be able to hold his wine. You do not get drunk, Maturin; that is one of the things I like about you. Captain Aubrey and half the other men here will have to be carried to bed.’
‘No, I love wine, but I do not find it often affects my judgment: not often. I drank a good deal this evening, however. As far as Jack Aubrey is concerned, do you not think you may be a little late in the field? I have the impression that tonight may be decisive.’
‘Has he told you anything? Has he confided in you?’
‘You do not speak as you have just spoken to a tattle-tale of a man, I believe. As far as your knowledge of me goes, it is accurate.’
‘In any case, you are wrong. I know Sophie. He may make a declaration, but she will need a longer time than this. She need never fear being left on the shelf – it never occurs to her at all, I dare say – and she is afraid of marriage. How she cried when I told her men had hair on their chests! And she hates being managed – that is not the word I want. What is it, Maturin?’
‘Manipulated.’
‘Exactly. She is a dutiful girl – a great sense of duty:
1 think it rather stupid, but there it is – but still she finds the way her mother has been arranging and pushing and managing and angling in all this perfectly odious. You two must have had hogsheads of that grocer’s claret forced down your throats. Perfectly odious: and she is obstinate
– strong, if you like – under that bread-and-butter way of hers. It will take a great deal to move her; much more than the excitement of a ball.’
‘She is not attached?’
‘Attached to Aubrey? I do not know; I do not suppose she knows herself. She likes him; she is flattered by his attentions; and to be sure he is a husband any woman would be glad to have – well-off, good-looking, distinguished in his profession and with a future before him, unexceptionable family, cheerful, good-natured. But she is entirely unsuited to him – I am persuaded she is, with her secretive, closed, stubborn nature. He needs someone much more awake, much more alive: they would never be happy.’
‘She may have a passionate side, a side you know nothing about, or do not choose to see.’
‘Stuff, Maturin. In any case, he needs a different woman and she needs a different man: in a way you might be much more suited to her, if you could stand her ignorance.’
‘So Jack Aubrey might answer?’
‘Yes, I like him well enough. I should prefer a man more – what shall I say? More grown up, less of a boy
– less of a huge boy.’
‘He is highly considered in his profession, as you said yourself, just now.’
‘That is neither here nor there. A man may be brilliant
in his calling and a mere child outside it. I remember a mathematician – they say he was one of the best in the world – who came out to India, to do something about Venus; and when his telescope was taken away from him, he was unfit for civilized life. A blundering schoolboy! He clung to my hand all through one tedious, tedious evening, sweating and stammering. No: give me the politicoes -they know how to live; and they are all reading men, more or less. I wish Aubrey were something of a reading man. More like you – I mean what I say. You are very good company: I like being with you. But he is a handsome fellow. Look,’ she said, turning to the window, ‘there he is, figuring away. He dances quite well, does he not? It is a pity he wants decision.’
‘You would not say that if you saw him taking his ship into action.’
‘I mean in his relations with women. He is sentimental. But still, he would do. Shall I tell you something that will really shock you, although you are a medical man? I was married, you know – I am not a girl – and intrigues were as common in India as they are in Paris.
There are times when I am tempted to play the fool, terribly tempted. I dare say I should, too, if I lived in London and not in this dreary hole.’
‘Tell me, have you reason to suppose that Jack is to your way of thinking?’
‘About our suitability? Yes. There are signs that mean a lot to a woman. I wonder he ever looked seriously at Sophie. He is not interested, I suppose? Her fortune would not mean a great deal to him? Have you known him long? But I suppose all you naval people have known one another, or of one another, for ever.’
‘Oh, I am no seaman, at all. I first met him in Minorca,
in the year one, in the spring of the year one. I had taken
a patient there, for the Mediterranean climate – he died
–
and I met Jack at a concert. We took a liking to one
another, and he asked me to sail with him as his surgeon. I
agreed, being quite penniless at the time, and we have been together ever since. I know him well enough to say that as for being interested, concerned for a woman’s fortune, there never was a man more unworldly than Jack Aubrey. Maybe I will tell you a thing about him.’
‘Go on, Stephen.’
‘Some time ago he had an unhappy affair with another officer’s wife. She had the dash, the style and the courage he loves, but she was a hard, false woman, and she wounded him very deeply. So virginal modesty, rectitude, principle, you know? have a greater charm for him than they might otherwise have had.’
‘Ah? Yes, I see. I see now. And you have a béguin for her too? It is no use, I warn you.
She would never do a thing without her mother’s consent, and that is nothing to do with her mother’s being in control of her fortune: it is all duty. And you would never bring my aunt Williams round in a thousand years. Still, you may feel on Sophie’s side.’
‘I have the greatest liking and admiration for her.’
‘But no tendre?’
‘Not as you would define it. But I am averse to giving pain, Villiers, which you are not.’
She stood up, as straight as a wand. ‘We must go in. I have to dance this next bout with Captain Aubrey,’ she said, kissing him. ‘I am truly sorry if I hurt you, Maturin.’
CHAPTER THREE
For many years Stephen Maturin had kept a diary in a crabbed and characteristically secret shorthand of his own. It was scattered with anatomical drawings, descriptions of plants, birds, moving creatures, and if it had been deciphered the scientific part would have been found to be in Latin; but the personal observations were all in Catalan, the language he had spoken most of his youth. The most recent entries were in that tongue.