Yet when Jack was at home, and when there was a good deal of entertaining –
particularly polished civilian entertaining – to be done, Manson was brought up to Hampshire, where he
had a wretched time of it. He did understand the chief duties of a butler admirably well, caring for the wine in the wood, ulling it, racking it, bottling it, cherishing the bottles and eventually decanting their contents, bringing the wine to table in excellent condition; and he performed the ornamental part of his functions with proper dignity. But the seamen did not value him a bean for any of his skills; they despised him for his neglect of Woolcombe, which was turned out only once a year, in spring, instead of every day at dawn; and they resented the least hint of any infringement upon their rights, privileges or sea-going customs.
The sound of one of these disagreements brought Sophie running nimbly to the dining-room on the day of the captains’ dinner. As she opened the door the sound increased quite shockingly: Killick, his disagreeably yellow face now almost white with fury, had Manson in a corner, threatening him with a fish-slice and telling him in a high shrewish screech that he was not all that a good man should be – telling him with such a wealth of detail and such vehement obscenity that Sophie clapped the door behind her in case the children should hear. ‘For shame, Killick, for shame!’ she cried.
‘Which he touched my silver,’ replied Killick, his quivering fish-slice now pointing to the noble, gleaming spread on the dining-table. ‘He shifted three spoons with his great greasy thumbs and I seen him hurr on this here slice.’
‘I was only giving it the butler’s rub.’
‘Butler’s. . .’ began Killick with renewed fury.
‘Hush, Killick,’ said Sophie. ‘The Commodore says you are to stand behind his chair in your best blue jacket and Manson behind him in his plum-coloured coat; and Bonden is to see to the proper gloves. Now hurry along, do. There is not a moment to lose.’
There was not, indeed. The invitations had been marked half past three for four and she knew from long experience of naval punctuality that between thirty and thirty-five minutes after the hour there would be a sudden flood of guests. She glanced along the table, all ablaze, all exactly squared; rearranged one bowl of roses; and hurried off to put on a glorious dress made of the scarlet silk, Jack’s present, that had survived its almost intolerably arduous voyage from Batavia unharmed.
She was sitting in the drawing-room looking beautiful and with what she hoped was a convincing appearance of calm, pleasurable anticipation when Jack led in the first of his captains, William Duff of the Stately, a tall, athletic, exceptionally good-looking man of perhaps thirty-five. He was followed by Tom Pullings and Howard of the Aurora; Thomas of the unwelcome Thames; Fitton of the Nimble; and presently the tale was complete –
almost complete.
‘Where is the Doctor?’ she whispered to Killick as he came by with a tray of glasses. He looked quickly about: his face changed from its unnatural expression of amiability, with a fixed smirk, to its more usual pinched severity, and with a secret nod he hurried out.
It was a long-established rule in the Navy that the higher a sailor rose in rank the later he was fed. As a midshipman Jack Aubrey, like the ratings, had eaten at noon. When he was made a lieutenant, he and his fellow-members of the wardroom mess dined at one; when he commanded his own ship he ate half an hour or even a full hour later; and now that he was, for the time being, a commodore with a squadron, it was thought proper that he should move on towards the admirals’ still later hours. But his stomach, like those of his guests, was still a captain’s. It had been sharp-set before three; it was ravenous at half-past; yawning and gaping with hunger. Conversation, though stimulated by Sophie’s increasingly anxious efforts, by olives and little biscuits handed on trays by whitegloved bluejackets, by Plymouth gin, madeira and sherry, was tending to flag or grow somewhat forced when the door opened and Stephen made a curiously abrupt entrance, as though propelled from behind. He was in a decent black suit of clothes, his wig was powdered and set square on his head, his white neckcloth was tied with perfect accuracy, so tight that he could scarcely breathe. He still looked somewhat amazed, but recovering in a moment he bowed to the company, and hurried over to make his apologies to Sophie: ‘he had been contemplating on wariangles, and had overlooked the time.’
‘Poor Stephen,’ said she, smiling in the kindest way, ‘you must be dreadfully hungry then. Gentlemen,’ she called, rising, to the relief of one and all, ‘shall we go in, leaving introductions for later?’ And privately, ‘Stephen, gorge yourself with soup and bread: the venison pasty may not be quite the thing.’
After the proper hesitations and yielding of precedence at the dining-room door, the table filled quickly, Sophie at one end and Jack at the other.
Stephen, as he had been desired, earnestly attacked the soup, a most uncommonly good dish made principally of pounded lobsters, with their carefully shelled claws aswim in the rosy mass, and when the first pangs were assuaged he gazed about the table. Since this was essentially a social gathering, convoked by Sophie, the seating was unorthodox from the service point of view, though she had respected seniority to the extent of placing William Duff on her husband’s right,while on his left he had young Michael Fitton, the son of a former shipmate and close friend. For her own neighbours she had two exceptionally shy officers, Tom Pullings, who had an ugly wound and a countryman’s voice, both of which made him uneasy in company, and Carlow of the Orestes, who had no reason for diffidence at all, being well connected and well educated, but who nevertheless hated dining out and who, she felt, needed taking care of.
Stephen gazed about. He was not a particularly social animal
– a watcher rather than a partaker – but he did like to see his fellows and quite often he liked to listen to them. On his left there was Captain Duff, talking eagerly to Jack about Bentinck shrouds: Stephen could detect no sign whatsoever of the tastes attributed to him.
Indeed he could have sworn that Duff would have been most attractive to women. Yet the same, he reflected, might have been said of Achilles. His mind wandered over the varieties of this aspect of sexuality – the comparatively straightforward Mediterranean approach; the very curious molly-shops around the Inns of Court; the sense of furtive guilt and obsession that seemed to increase with every five or ten degrees of northern latitude.
On the other side of the table, not directly opposite Stephen but one place up, sat Francis Howard of the Aurora, perhaps the best Greek scholar in the Navy: he had spent three happy years in the eastern Mediterranean, collecting inscriptions, and Stephen had hoped to sit next to him. On Howard’s right he saw Smith of the Camilla and Michael Fitton, both brown-faced, roundheaded, cheerful, intelligent-looking young men of a kind quite usual in the service. They could never have been taken for soldiers. Why did the Navy attract men with round heads? What had the phrenologist Gall to say? Stephen’s right-hand neighbour, Captain Thomas, was round-headed too, and deeply tanned: but he was neither young nor cheerful. After a very long career as a commander, chiefly in the West Indies, he had been made post into the Eusebio, 32, which was destroyed in the hurricane of 18o9; and now he commanded the Thames. He was the oldest man present, and his authoritarian face was set in an expression of disapproval – perpetually cross. He was known in the service as the Purple Emperor.
‘Sir,’ murmured a familiar voice in Stephen’s ear, ‘you’ve got your sleeve in your dinner.’ It was Plaice, forecastleman, wearing white gloves and a mess-servant’s jacket.
‘Thank you, Joe,’ said Stephen, taking it out and mopping it busily, with an anxious look at Killick.
‘Capital soup, sir,’ said Duff, smiling athim.
‘The true ambrosia, sir, in the right place,’ said Stephen, ‘but perhaps a little unctuous on black broadcloth. May I trouble you for a piece of bread? It may do better than my napkin.’
They talked away, agreeing very well; and when, after the first remove, a roast loin of veal was put down in front of Stephen he said ‘Sir, allow me to cut you a piece.’
‘You are very good, sir. There are few things I dread more than having to carve.’
‘For you, sir?’ asked Stephen, turning to Thomas.
‘If you please,’ said the Purple Emperor. ‘Why, you slice as trim as a surgeon.’