‘So it was; and so it is, for the greater part, still in my godfather’s iron-bound chests.
I changed only a small proportion, for current expenses. Reasonable dowries, then, in case they choose to marry rather than lead apes in Hell. To marry, perhaps some skilled and thinking artisan, a clock-maker for example, or one that makes scientific instruments: possibly an apothecary or a surgeon or a preparer of specimens for anatomy-classes: Catholic, of course. Certainly not a sailor. A sailor, who may be absent for years, throws impossible strains on his wife. If she is a woman of any degree of temperament at all there is of course the question of chastity; and in either case there is that of command or perhaps I should say of decision. A woman who has been running a household, perhaps an estate, acquires an authority and a power of decision that she is not always willing to renounce: nor indeed should she always do so, since men are not invariably born with innate financial wisdom; and those who have spent most of their time at sea may be far less well acquainted with business by land than a sensible woman. Then again there is the bringing-up of children. . .’ Stephen prosed away until he noticed that Sir Joseph’s attention was almost entirely taken up with his Welsh rabbit, and perhaps with some anxieties that he had brought away with him from the Admiralty.
He stopped, and in the silence Blaine said ‘Very true. There is little to be said for the marriage of a sailor; or for any other man, if it come to that. As for the perpetuation of
the human race, there are times when it seems to me that the world would be far, far better if the race were to die out. We have made such a sorry piece of work of it –
everything for happiness, and misery everywhere. Even in spite of my boiled fowl and my pint of claret and your company I find my spirits much oppressed.’ He glanced round the room, still well filled with members, some of them at tables quite close, and said ‘But of course I speak as a bachelor, and it suddenly comes to me that you are now a married man: it was inhuman of me to delay you with my porphyry Jove. Of course, you did not land at Shelmerston and post away into Hampshire with Jack Aubrey, so of course you have not seen Diana or had any news of her, or of Mrs Oakes?’
‘I have not,’ replied Stephen, wondering a little at Blaine’s emphasis.
‘Shall we take our coffee in the library?’
‘By all means. It is the finest room in the club.’
Fine and even splendid it was, but its three great lustres shone upon books, comfortable chairs and Turkey carpet alone: never a member there.
‘Stephen,’ said Joseph, when the waiter had left them with a pot of coffee, a tray of petits fours and a decanter of cognac, ‘I did not think it right to tell you what is in my mind in a public office, however closed the room. These hypothetical ears may be no more than one of the hallucinations of a mind too long and too closely engaged on what for lack of a better word I shall call intelligence, but they may exist, and that is why I am so happy that we are sitting together here in this warm and well padded desert.’ He poured coffee and absentmindedly ate half a dozen little meringues. ‘Your private letters asked me to take care of Clarissa Oakes and told me about her exceptional fund of information.’ Clarissa, a young gentlewoman reduced to beggary, had worked in a fashionable brothel within a musket-shot of the clubs in St James’s Street, where she was well placed for learning a great many curious facts. ‘I did take care of her, getting poor young Oakes his promotion and a ship, and when he was killed I took her down to Diana. Her fund of information was indeed exceptional and with her help we quickly identified the limping gentleman with the Garter who was connected with those wicked buggers Wray and Ledward.’ The wicked buggers – and Blaine used the gross word literally – had been concerned with passing secret intelligence, particularly naval intelligence, to the enemy; they had been betrayed by a French agent, and after many changes of fortune Stephen had cut them both to pieces in an East Indian dissecting-room.
‘Unhappily he turned out to be a hemi-demi royal, the Duke of Habachtsthal. He was brought up mainly in England, but he has a little principality close to Hanover and a much larger estate on the Rhine, both now occupied by the French, of course, and ideally suited for French blackmail. The old King was very fond of him and if he had been a marrying man, which he is not, he might perhaps have had one of our primcesses: but even without, he is very nearly untouchable.’
‘If I do not mistake he has high army rank – perhaps only honorary – and considerable influence.’
‘Yes. He acts as adviser to several bodies, and through his aide-dc-camp Colonel Blagden he may be said to sit on some important committees.’ A pause, in which they both drank brandy, and then Blaine went on, ‘Of course, there was no possibility of direct proceedings against him without absolutely cast-iron evidence like that we had against Ledward and Wray: and this we do not possess. However, we did make a good deal of distant thunder. You would never believe, Stephen, what Byzantine ways Whitehall
possesses of conveying a threat, of causing it to echo from wall to wall until it reaches the intended ear.’
‘What effect did it have?’
‘Excellent, to begin with. Information had been going across, as in Ledward’s time, and it stopped abruptly. But presently our gentleman came to a better understanding of his own impunity, and last month we lost the greater part of a West Indies convoy. More than that, he is a very old court and ministry hand and I believe he has traced the threat back to its source or is near to doing so. I am afraid of his resentment, both for myself and you: he was very much attached to Ledward, and even, in their strange fashion, to Wray. He is a bitterly revengeful man.. . I am by no means sure of all this, Stephen; but there are one or two things that increase my feeling of uneasiness, however weak, illogical and even superstitious it may be. One is that both Montague and his cousin St Leger seem to be fighting shy of me, as I dare say you noticed at the Committee, when I. ..’
A member in a bright blue coat with shining buttons walked in: he peered myopically at them, came a little nearer, and called out ‘Sir Joseph, you hdve not seen Edward Cadogan, by any chance?’
‘No, sir, I have not,’ said Blaine.
‘Then I shall have to look in the billiard-room.’
The door closed behind him and Blaine poured more brandy. ‘Then again, you will remember you asked me to arrange pardons for both Mrs Oakes and your Padeen for the crime of returning from Botany Bay without leave. It seemed to me a matter of no difficulty: Clarissa is the widow of a sea-officer killed in a very creditable action, and in the right quarters I could mention unusual services rendered to Intelligence; while your interest with the Admiralty and some of your more illustrious patients would surely cover poor Padeen.
But my unofficial approaches have not been satisfactory – strange delays – a hint of unavowed reluctance. I do not like to press a direct request, still less present it in writing, until I am sure of a favourable response. I had thought of abandoning the usual channels and applying to the Duke of Sussex, seeing that you and he are both fellows of the Royal Society and founder-members of the Council Against Slavery, but he is gone to Lisbon; and the first stages in a matter of this kind must be by word of mouth.’
‘Certainly,’
said
Stephen.
‘In any event,’ said Blaine after a pause for consideration, ‘this second instance is no more than academic. If the two in question do not advertise their presence the likelihood of their being disturbed is utterly remote; and I cite their case only as an example of the tainting effect of an important man’s dislike. If he has made his aversion evident – if he has cried “That old fool Blaine at the Admiralty” let us say – the mews would spread; I should become at least slightly leprous, and no man in his senses would hurry to do me a favour. That is all. I do not intend to imply any direct malignity extending beyond me and perhaps you, if indeed that malignity exists at all, and is not the figment of a fagged-out mind and an overwrought imagination.’