‘Which the Captain says he trusts you are pretty well,’ said Killick in a tone that he judged suitable for one so recently comatose. ‘And no pain.’
With so much notice Bonden hung his head and muttered something that Killick translated as, ‘He says the other sod – the other party – copped it worse, and is despaired of.’
They all moved into the hail, and from the hail to the front morning room, where Padeen detached the children and led them away towards the pump; yet even so Jack’s account of his triumph in London was not as open and candid as it would have been with fewer people present. Nor was Sophie’s production of the orders to rejoin his ship ‘which came after you had left,’ as she put it, blushing as she did so.
Yet bridled as his words were obliged to be, Jack spoke pretty freely, and with growing relish. The orders he dismissed with, ‘Yes, my dear, I heard about them. I shall post down to Torbay with Stephen tomorrow, if he can manage it, or the day after.’
‘Never mind about posting,’ said Diana. ‘I will drive you down in Cholmondeley’s machine: and if General Harte is as good as his word, with his extra pair, I shall drive you down in a coach and six. There’s glory for you! I have always wanted to drive a coach and six on an English turnpike.’
‘Have you not driven one before?’ cried Sophie in alarm. ‘Certainly I have: but in India.
And once or twice in Ireland – Ned Taaffe’s machine,’ she added, nodding to Stephen.
‘We should be very happy,’ said Jack, bowing. ‘But now let me tell you about the committee. First, as you know, Captain Griffiths is a newcomer in these parts. He has no great acquaintance in the neighbourhood; he does not know the connexions between the older families or the longstanding friendships, intermarriages and so on, and both he and the parliamentary lawyer he employed were unaware of the fact that Harry Turnbull is my cousin – indeed, my cousin twice over, since he married Lucy Brett. And then he is not a member of any decent club and he don’t know the importance of that connexion either.’
Both Jack and Stephen were members of the Royal Society Club, which did their heads great credit; but they were also members of Black’s, which spoke well for their power of discernment, for although the place was not quite so learned, it was somehow more companionable and, incidentally, much more to the point in the worldly line. ‘I met Frank Crawshay in the coffee-room, the member for Westport: he said he was sitting on the
committee – I gather the members had been chosen for their propensity to vote blindfold for the Ministry, and it was known that I had abstained when the naval estimates came up
– a black mark – and he let me know in a very tactful and what you might call alluvial fashion that his boy was down for election and he should be very grateful for my name in the candidates’ book. And he told me there were some other Blackses on the committee as well as Cousin Harry. Just as well, thought I, for Harry was in a horrid rage, having lost more money than he cared for to Colonel Waley – was barely civil –
would not lend me a shirt – should be damned if he would lend me a shirt – scarcely had a shirt to his name – barely a single shirt to his back. You know how cross Harry Turnbull can be: he must have fought more often than any man in the country – a very dangerous shot and very apt to take offence. So when I walked into the committee-room and saw him still looking furious and contrary and bloody-minded, I felt quite uneasy: and though smiles from Crawshay and two other Blackses comforted me a little I did not really have much hope until the lawyer started proceedings. His low soapy tone did not suit Harry, who kept telling him to speak up, to speak like a Christian for God’s sake, and not mumble. When he was young, people never mumbled, he said: you could hear every word. If anyone had mumbled, he would have been kicked out of the room. Then came the petition itself: it was handed to the chairman – Harry, of course – and he began to read out the names of the petitioners and their station: Griffiths, some of his friends, some of the richer farmers.
Then he cried, “But where’s the parson? Where’s the patron?”
‘”The rector has been travelling for his health these last five years, sir: he is said to be in Madeira now, but he does not answer letters; and the curate cannot speak in his name.”
“Well, where’s the patron of the living? And where’s the lord of the manor? The same person, I suppose. Why is his name not here?”
‘Griffiths went red and muttered something to his lawyer. I stood up and said, “I am the patron of the living, sir, and the lord of the manor. My name is not there because I am very strongly opposed to the inclosure and to the petition.”
‘Harry glared about him, scribbled sums on a piece of paper, and then said to Griffiths,
“God’s my life, sir. You have the effrontery to present this with just the barest majority by value, when you know perfectly well that three quarters or four fifths is the usual figure.
And to make things worse, far, far worse, you do so against the will of the lord of the manor, your natural superior. I have never heard of
such a thing. I wonder at it, sir. I wonder at it.”
All this time Killick and Mnason the butler had been standing outside the door. Their mutual hostility had kept them away from it to begin with, but intense curiosity and the useful formula ‘We might either of us be sent for’ had brought them to a truce and their ears were very close to the wood at this very point, when Mrs Pearce thrust indignantly between them and burst into the room. ‘Ma’am,’ she cried, holding up a noble fish, ‘I could not get the men to hear, I could not send a maid, and I have to know this directly minute. If I am to cook this here for dinner it must go on at once, at once. Which it came a quarter of an hour ago by the chiming clock. Twenty-six pound four ounces, without a lie.’
They gazed upon it with admiration, a silvery, quiveringfresh, clean-run salmon: and on its side it bore a card For our Captain with love from all at the Aubrey Arms.
That night, which should have been equally triumphant, was not: misunderstanding, mistiming, and mere weariness played their not uncommon part and for once Jack Aubrey got up in a bad temper of mind. He cut his chin while he was shaving and when he came
back into the bedroom he heard Sophie, her head muffled under her shift, uttering a discontented remark whose beginning he had not heard but which, as her head emerged, finished with ‘…that Mrs Oakes.’
Jack checked his immediate answer, but having tied his neckcloth he said, ‘You often say
“that Mrs Oakes” in a tone that makes me think you imagine something improper about our having been shipmates. Even if I had been Heliogabalus or Colonel Chartres there could not possibly have been anything improper. She came aboard without my knowledge under the protection of one of my midshipmen:
I at once insisted upon their being married – I even gave a piece of that crimson silk I bought you in Java for her to be married in. I may have been something of a rake when I was young, but I give you my sacred word that I .have never
played the fool at sea and I should never, never at any time look at the wife of one of my officers. So I beg we may hear no more of “that Mrs Oakes”.’
Sophie blushed as crimson as her Java silk, hung her head, and made no reply, the extreme awkwardness being resolved by the breakfast gong beaten in a frenzy by George and Brigid, still in their nightshirts.
Diana, late for most things, was prompt for this. Having breakfasted by candle-light they made an early start in the half-day, the stars still to be seen due west, with Venus declining. ‘Let go,’ called Diana from the box, and the coach rolled smoothly away, followed by a chaise carrying Killick and Bonden, who was in no state to travel outside a coach, and leaving such a melancholy group waving on the steps, some indeed in tears.
The men had drawn lots to decide which should sit next to Diana for the first stage: it had fallen on Dundas, so Stephen and Jack were inside, with the head groom and a boy up behind. Jack remained silent for a while. He and Sophie disagreed fairly often, though perhaps less than most married people, but never had they done so on parting. It was true that this was not much of a parting – leave from the Brest blockade was reasonably frequent and letters passed to and fro – and it was true that Sophie’s attitude towards Clarissa Oakes (a guest, after all) had irritated him extremely, all the more so since he had at one time been strongly tempted to lead Clarissa far astray – he was not a man to whom chastity came easy – and had had to impose a most rigorous self-command: but he was sorry he had spoken. Eventually he said, ‘Old Harding is of opinion that the salmon had been ordered by Griffiths, and that it came by coach, being left at the Arms – according to village gossip he had ordered dinner for a score – for none of our streams ever yielded a fish like that. But I do hope our people are not coming it too high.’