The frigate was quite unchanged, seen from the level of the sea, and even Dr Maturin would have recognized her towering mainmast with its particular rake, her fine entry and her flowing lines from a mile away or even more. But what a different state of things was seen when they came aboard! The familiar decks, the gunroom, the great cabin itself were full of merchants of one kind or another, and since they were also going to attend the sale of a captured American whaler they were all dressed in old and greasy clothes, which made their prying, evaluating, horse-coping motions even more offensive to the prejudiced observer. Several groups came up to Pullings and spoke to him in low confidential tones, proposing arrangements for various parts of the ship –
arrangements to avoid undue competition – arrangements for the advantage of all concerned
–
and while he dealt with them in his cheerful, decided, competent way, Stephen lapsed into a reverie, his hand resting on his meagre belly in a somewhat Napoleonic attitude.
Beneath his hand, beneath his buff waistcoat and his shirt, lay a sheaf of crisp new Bank of England notes, a man-of-war in small compass straight from Threadneedle Street, and for a while he took a certain remote pleasure in their crinkling response to the pressure of his fingers; but his mind was almost entirely taken up with thoughts of Diana – her delight in auctions – her ingenuous excitement
–
her mounting colour and brilliant eyes – her inability to sit still or keep quiet – the library of Calvinist theology that she had once bought by mistake, the fourteen long-case clocks – and although he paid some mechanical attention to the preliminaries and to Pullings’s early bids, his mind soon sank so deep that the clear vision of Diana, standing just inside the door at Christie’s with her head held high and her mouth opening in an expression of vivid triumph did not fade until the auctioneer’s hammer came down with a decided crack and Pullings gave him joy of his purchase.
‘God love you, Doctor,’ he said in a wondering tone, when the formalities were over and they were on deck again, ‘to think you are the owner of Surprise!’
‘It is a solemn thought,’ replied Stephen. ‘But I hope I shall not be her owner long. I hope I shall find Mr Aubrey happy and at large, ready to take her off my hands; though I love her dearly, so I do, as a floating home, an ark of refuge.’
‘You, sir,’ cried Pullings, laying his hand on a belayingpin. ‘Leave those twiddling-lines alone.’
‘I was only looking,’ said the longshoreman.
‘You may step over the brow as quick as you. like,’ said
Pullings, and going to the side he called out to a wherry, ‘Jospin, be a good chap and give your brother a hail. We must tow out to moorings before we lose all our standing rigging and the masts too. Lord, sir,’ he said to Stephen, ‘how I wish Bonden was here already, with his party. Even at moorings, out in the stream, I have only one pair of eyes.’ He caught up a bucket and with wonderful dexterity he flung its water full on to some little boys on a raft made of stolen planks who were trying to prise some of the copper off the frigate’s hull, under her bows. ‘You whoreson little hellspawn buggers,’ he called, ‘next time I see you I shall have you taken up and hanged. No, sir, now the auctioneer’s men are gone they look upon us as fair game. The sooner we are at moorings the better, and even then. .
‘You mean to move away from the side, I collect? Away from the quay or wharf?’
‘That’s right, sir. Out into the middle or centre.’
‘Then I shall step ashore now, by this convenient bridge or gangway; for were we in the middle I should have to go down into a boat, and I am not always quite at my ease, going down into a boat. You may have noticed it.’
‘Not at all, sir, not at all,’ said Pullings. ‘Anyone can slip, just a little.’
‘Besides, I must start back directly. Mr Lawrence may wish to call me as a witness on the third day, so there is not a moment to lose.’
The chaise lost not a moment: the weather was uniformly kind, and the elegant black and yellow machine ran steadily north throughout the rest of that day and all night, never lacking for horses at any stage on the road nor for zealous post-boys. It brought Stephen to St James’s Street in time to breakfast, to call a barber to shave him and powder his wig, to put on a good black suit of clothes and a new neckcloth, and to step into a hackneycoach for the City with a quiet mind.
He was in good time and even when they were caught in an unmoving flood of vehicles this side of St Clement’s he did not fret; nor, on reaching Guildhall at last, was he much concerned at finding the court full of lawyers arguing about a case whose nature he could not make out but which certainly had nothing to do with Jack Aubrey or the Stock Exchange. He had always heard of the law’s delays and for a while he supposed that Jack’s case had been put back for some reason – that it would be heard later, perhaps in the afternoon. He sat there, contemplating Lord Quinborough, a heavy, glum, dissatisfied man whose thick, insensitive face had a wart on its left cheek; the judge had a loud, droning voice and he very often raised it, interrupting one counsel or another; Stephen had rarely seen so much self-complacency, hardness, and want of common feeling gathered together under a single wig. He also tried to make out the point at issue, at the same time keeping an eye lifted for Jack’s solicitors, his counsel, or their clerks; but in time
he grew uneasy – this case was obviously going to last a very, very long while -and tiptoeing to the door he asked an attendant ‘was this the right place for Captain Aubrey’s trial?’
‘The Stock Exchange fraud? Why, it’s all over -was over yesterday. They come up for sentence early next week, and won’t they cop it? Oh no, not at all.’
Stephen did not know the City at all well; there were no hackney-coaches to be had, and as he hurried through the hurrying crowds in what he hoped was the direction of the Temple he seemed to pass the same church again and again. He also came to the gates of Bedlam twice. Presently his rapid walking took on the quality of a nightmare, but the fourth time he reached Love Lane – it was Love Lane that foxed him every time – he chanced upon an unemployed ticket-porter who led him to the river. Here he took a pair of oars, and the tide being in his favour the waterman brought him to the Temple stairs in less time than he had taken to reach Bedlam from Guildhall.
At Lawrence’s chambers Stephen learnt that he was sick, confined to his bed, but that he had left word for Dr Maturin. The transcript of the trial was being written fair and would be ready tomorrow, but if Dr Maturin did not mind the risk of infection, Mr Lawrence would be happy to see him at home, in King’s Bench Row.
‘Conscientiously willing’ would perhaps have been a more accurate expression, for as Lawrence heaved himself up in bed and pulled off his nightcap he looked perfectly wretched. His streaming eyes and nose, his obvious headache, his rasping throat, and his high degree of fever had a great deal to do with this, but he was also wretched as a lawyer and as a man.
‘You heard the result, of course?’ he said. ‘Aubrey and all the defendants found guilty. You will have the whole transcript tomorrow, so I shall only give you the main heads now.’ He broke into a fit of coughing, said ‘As far as I can recall them,’ and began wheezing, gasping and sneezing again. ‘Forgive me, Maturin, I am in a sad way – wits all far to seek.
Pray pass me that stuff on the bob.’ When he had drunk some he said ‘Do you remember I told you to bring Aubrey’s ideas of the law, or rather of the administration of justice, down to a less exalted pitch? Well, if you had spoken with the tongues of men and of angels you could not have done better than Quinborough and Pearce. It was butchery, Maturin, butchery. Long-drawn-out, cold, deliberate butchery. I have seen some pretty ugly political trials, but none to touch this; I had no idea that Government thought General Aubrey and his Radical friends so important or that they would go to such lengths to attack them, such lengths to obtain a conviction.’ Lawrence went into another paroxysm, drank another draught, and clasping his head with both hands he begged Stephen’s pardon. ‘This will be a miserably disjointed account, I am afraid. As I told you, Pearce was for the prosecution –