Sophia looked earnestly at the birds and said that she too found it truly astonishing. ‘Poor coots,’ she added, ‘they always seem so cross. So that is the Admiralty?’
‘Yes. And I dare say jack knows his fate by now. He will be behind one of those tall windows on the left.’
‘It is a noble building,’ said Sophia. ‘Perhaps we might see it a little closer to? To see it in its true proportions. Diana said he was looking quite thin, and not at all well. Diminished, was what she said.’
‘He has aged, maybe,’ said Stephen. ‘But he still eats for six; and although I should no longer call him grossly obese, he is far too fat. I wish I could say the same for you, my dear.’ Sophia had indeed grown thinner; it suited her in that it took away that last hint of childishness and brought out the hidden strength of her features; but at the same time her removed, mysterious, sleepy look had disappeared, and now she was a young woman wide awake
– an adult. ‘If you had seen him last night at Lady Keith’s, you would not have worried. To be sure, he lost the rest of his ear in the Indiaman – but that was nothing.’
‘His ear!’ cried Sophia, turning white and coming to a dead halt in the middle of the Parade.
‘You are standing in a puddle, my dear. Let me lead you to dry land. Yes, his ear, his right ear, or what there was left of it. But it was nothing. I sewed it on again; and as I say, if you had seen him last night, you would have been easy in your mind.’
‘What a good friend you are to him, Dr Maturin. His other friends are so grateful to you.’
‘I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.’
‘What a providence it is that he has you by: I am afraid he sometimes hazards himself very thoughtlessly.’
‘He does, too.’
‘Yet I do not think I could have borne to see him. I was very unkind to him when last we met.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘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.
Clocks all over Westminster began to tell the hour, and Sophie cried, ‘Oh, we are shockingly late. I promised Mama – she will be so anxious. Come, let us run.’
He gave her his arm and they hurried across the park, Stephen guiding her, for her eyes were dim with tears and every three steps she glanced over her shoulder to look at the windows of the Admiralty.
These windows, for the most part, belonged to the official apartments of the Lords Commissioners; those which sheltered Jack were on the far side of the building, so placed that he could see the courtyard. He was, in fact, in the waiting-room, where he had spent many an anxious, weary hour in the course of his career, and where he had now been waiting since his interview long enough to count a hundred and twenty-three men and two
women walk in or out of the archway. A good many other officers shared the room with him, the company changing as the day wore on; but none of them were waiting, as he was waiting, with their appointment and their orders crackling in their bosoms – his was as strange a case of waiting as the porters had ever seen, and it excited their curiosity.
His was an absurd position. In one pocket he had this beautiful document requesting and requiring him to repair on board His Majesty’s slop Polychrest, and in the other a flaccid purse with a clipped groat in it and no more, all
the rest having gone in customary presents. The Polychrest meant safety, or so he believed, and the Portsmouth mail left at eleven o’clock that night; but he would have to get from Whitehall to Lombard Street without being taken; he would have to traverse London, a conspicuous uniformed figure. In any case he must communicate with Stephen, who expected him at the cottage. Yet he dared not leave the Admiralty: if he were taken at this stage he would hang himself out of mere fury, and he had already had a most unpleasant fright when he was crossing the hall from the Secretary’s office and a porter told him that ‘a little cove in black and a scrub wig had been asking for him by name.’
‘Send him about his business, will you? Is Tom here?’
‘Oh, no, sir. Tom’s not on duty till Sunday night. a shifty little cove in black, sir.’
For the last forty minutes he had seen this slight black vaguely legal figure crossing and recrossing the passage into Whitehall, peering into coaches as they stopped and even mounting on the step: once he had seen him talking with two burly great fellows, Irish chairmen or bailiff’s men dressed as chairmen – a common disguise for bums.
Jack was not in good odour with the porters that day; he had not produced a shower of gold, not as who should say a shower; but they had a smell of the truth and they naturally took his part against the civil power. When one came in with fresh coals he quietly observed, ‘Your little chap with the cauliflower car is still hanging about outside the arch, sir.’
‘Cauliflower ear’ – had he heard that before how happy he would have been! He darted to the window, and after some minutes of peering he said, ‘Be a good fellow and desire him to step into the hall. I will see him at once.’
Mr Scriven, the literary man, came across the courtyard; he was looking old and tired; his ear was hideously swollen. ‘Sir,’ he said in a voice that quavered with anxiety, ‘Dr Maturin bids me tell you that all was well in Seething Lane, and he hopes you will join him at the Grapes, by the
Savoy, if you are not bespoke. I am to fetch a coach into the court. I have been trying to do my errand, sir . . . I hope…’
‘Excellent. Capital. Make it so, Mr – . Bring it into the yard and I am with you.’
At the mention of the Savoy, that blessed haven, the porter’s suspicions were confirmed; a benevolent grin spread across his face and he hurried Out with Mr Scriven to find a coach, bring it in through the arch (an irregular proceeding) and manoeuvre it so close to the steps that Jack could step in unseen.
‘Perhaps it would be wise to sit on the floor, on this cloak, sir,’ said Mr Scriven. ‘It has been baked,’ he added, sensing a certain reluctance. ‘And Dr Maturin was good enough to shave me all over, to parboil me in the copper, and to new-clothe me from head to foot.’
‘I am sorry I gave your ear such a knock,’ said Jack from the depths of the straw. ‘Does it hurt a great deal?’
‘You are very good, sir. I do not feel it now. Dr Maturin was so kind as to dress it with an ointment from the oriental apothecary’s at the corner of Bruton Street, and it is almost insensible. Now, sir, you can sit up, if you choose: we are in the duchy.’
‘What duchy?’
‘The duchy of Lancaster, sir. From Cecil Street to the other side of Exeter Change it is part of the duchy, neither London nor Westminster, and the law is different – writs not the same as London writs: why, even the chapel is a royal peculiar.’
‘Peculiar, is she?’ said Jack with real satisfaction. ‘A damned agreeable peculiarity, too. I wish there were more of ’em. What is your name, sir?’
‘Scriven, sir, at your service. Adam Scriven.’
‘You are an honest fellow, Mr Scriven. Here we are:
this is the Grapes. Can you pay the man? Capital.’
‘Stephen,’ he cried, ‘how happy I am to see you. We have a chance yet – we breathe! We hope! I have a ship,
and if only I can get to Portsmouth, and if she floats, we shall make our fortunes. Here are my orders: there are yours. Ha, ha, ha. What luck did you have? I hope you did not hear bad news. You look pretty hipped.’
‘No, no,’ said Stephen, smiling in spite of himself. ‘I
have negotiated the bill on Mendoza. At only twelve and
a half per cent discount, which surprised me; but then
the bill was backed. Here are eight-five guineas,’ sliding
a leather bag across the table.
‘Thank you, thank you, Stephen,’ cried Jack, shaking him by the hand. ‘What a charming sound – they ring out like freedom, ha, ha. I am as hungry as a man can well be, without perishing of mere want – nothing since breakfast.’ He began to halloo for the woman of the house, who told him he might have a nice pair of ducks or a nice piece of cold sturgeon with cucumber, fresh that morning in Billingsgate.