occasional Arab dhow. The French have sent shipwrights, tools, materials, guns and treasure. Their official envoy is Jean Duplessis, something of a nonentity; the man who will really conduct the affair is Ledward. He spent much of his youth in Penang and I am told that he speaks Malay like a native – at
all events I know he held an important post there under the Company and that he is an unusually able negotiator. The French have sent Wray too, more with the idea of getting rid of him than for any use he is likely to be: once he had ceased to be of value to them in Paris he was treated with great neglect and contempt, whereas Ledward always retained a certain position.’ Blaine stopped to collect his ideas again, but shaking his head he went on, ‘Do you mind if we go back into the house? If I were given a good pot of tea, a good pot of brown London tea, I believe it might clear my wits.’
‘Sure, I only wished to be outside to release my saga,’ said Stephen, ‘and if I might be indulged in a glass of white wine I should happily watch you drink your tea. In a place designed by Beckford you should be able to rely on an honest brew.’
‘Did you ever read Vathek?’
‘I tried, on the recommendation of men whose taste I respected.’
Sir Joseph drank his tea and Stephen his wine in an immensely long cool gallery on the north side of the house, with a flight of windows looking out on to gardens, lawns with three different streams flowing through the grass, copses, and on the rising ground beyond a noble wood, while the gallery’s opposite wall held a great number of large pictures, mostly of the last age and mostly allegorical. In this sweep of space the two men sitting in English armchairs with a little table between them looked minute: they could speak without the least fear of being overheard.
‘Of course,’ said Blaine, ‘we plan a counter-mission, and we have a capital man to take charge of it. His name is Fox, Edward Fox: he was my guest once at the dinner of the Royal Society Club and afterwards you heard him read a paper on the spread of Buddhism eastward and its subsequent relations with Brahmanism and the Muslims.’
‘Certainly. A man of unusual parts.’
‘Yes. Of most unusual parts; and yet he has never been appreciated at his full value. Always acting, temporary appointments – always moved on to some other administration.
Perhaps there is some fault of manner. . . a certain unorthodoxy . . . a certain bitterness from want of recognition. But there are undoubtedly remarkable abilities, and he might have been made for this particular undertaking. He is, by the way, a friend of Raffles, the Governor of Java, another interesting man.’
‘So I am told. I have not met the gentleman, but I have seen some of his letters to Banks: they think of founding a zoological society.’
‘Fox too was in Penang at one time, and it is from him that I have my information about Ledward in that respect.’ A long silence followed; the room was so still that a turtle-dove could be heard a great way off. ‘But naturally,’ continued Blaine, draining his pot, ‘we have to get our envoy there before the French have converted their man and signed their treaty. It can certainly be done, given equal diligence, because although they have a start, Fox and all other authorities assure me that with potentates of the Sultan’s kind these things are never concluded without discussions lasting a month or two, and because, since we control the Sunda Strait, the French have to go very, very much farther round. It can be done: I mean they can be frustrated, undermined, done in the eye, and I will tell
you how I think we should set about it. I have said how essentially important it is that this report about South America should be scotched, have I not?’
You emphasized it as strongly as possible’
‘Very well, then. Now according to my plan the Surprise will carry on with her avowable activities under her second in command and her present ship’s company – the authorities’ confidential arrangement for her hire will continue in force – and you and Aubrey will take the envoy to Pulo Prabang in the Diane, which has been bought into the service We had meant to wait until there was a victory that could be announced together with the news of Aubrey’s reinstatement – a question of saving official face – but now it is agreed that the country’s interests will be better served by openly, publicly, almost ostentatiously reinstating him and giving him this command
What more convincing proof that you are neither of you going to Peru?’
Stephen
nodded.
Blaine went on, ‘But that is not all. Let us suppose that the Surprise makes her way into the Pacific in Captain Pullings’ able hands – his name has come back to me – and there, having done what she ostensibly set out to do, she sails to some given rendezvous; and then let us suppose that the Diane, having dealt with the situation in Pulo Prabang, joins the Surprise at this rendezvous, so that you can return by South America, thus being enabled to make at least some of the discreet contacts that we had planned. What do you say to that, Maturin?’
Stephen looked at him for some moments with an expressionless face; then he said, ‘It is a grandiose scheme. I am in favour of it. But I cannot answer for Aubrey.’
‘No. Of course you cannot. Yet an answer must we have within two days, no more.
Clearly, I do not know Aubrey as well as you, not by a thousand miles; but I have little doubt of what he will say.’
Chapter
4
Jack Aubrey’s answer was yes, as Stephen had known very well it would be; but with what tearings of heart, what anxious self-questioning did he produce it at length, well on in the eleventh hour; and what sad, longing, perhaps guilt-stricken looks did he direct at the Surprise, already under sail far down there in the Tagus as he rode away, leaving his shipmates low-spirited, disappointed and in some cases even bereft. Some had been angry at first; many had said they had always known it would be an unlucky voyage; but no man had accepted Jack’s offer to give him his wages and pay his passage home, and they had derived increasing comfort from the fact that it was the Diane that they personally had cut out, their own Diane, in which he was to sail, and that the two ships were to meet at a given rendezvous – a rendezvous made all the more solid and palpable by the Captain’s wine and cold-weather clothes, which remained on board, together with crate after crate of the Doctor’s books.
Not only the hands but the officers took the parting hard. Pullings was devoted to Jack and the others had the greatest respect for him; and although they attributed less
importance to Aubrey’s private personal luck than did the foremost hands, it did not leave them indifferent by any means; furthermore, they knew very well how much easier it was to command a fierce, turbulent crew when there was a legendary figure aboard
– legendary for courage, success and good fortune. However, Stephen was able to assure Pullings that he was virtually certain of a command if he brought the Surprise home safely; and both West and Davidge felt that in such a case they would have much better chances of reinstatement.
Since Aubrey was to travel to his new ship by land and with the utmost haste he was unable to take any followers apart from his steward and coxswain, and the deserted, uncomplaining look of those he left behind was one of the hardest things about the whole operation.
Yet it was clear to him – it was clear to everyone concerned
– that this was still another of those naval occasions on which there was not a moment to be lost; and in a way it was just as well, since the incessant activity, and the extreme difficulty of travelling fast through Portugal and north-western Spain in a time of armed occupation and massive destruction, with the tide of war only just receding and liable to come flooding back at any time, took Jack’s mind from his deserted ship and shipmates.
But nothing, travel, guilt, extreme discomfort, could take away from the deep glow in his heart: if he could stay alive for the next couple of weeks or so, he would be gazetted and he would have a command – the charming promises would become infinitely more solid realities: changing from what his mind believed to what his whole person knew as a living fact. The fact, however, could not be mentioned, nor the glow acknowledged; even the inward singing must be repressed.