The Reverse of the Medal (16 page)

He smiled; and the smile was wiped from his face by the approach of Edward Parker, a former shipmate. He had nothing whatsoever against Edward Parker, but he did not want any man to commiserate with him about the Surprise. However, there was a way of dealing with the situation: Parker was a pretty good seaman, brave and successful; he belonged to a well-known naval family and he was sure of continuous employment and eventually of a flag; furthermore he was slim, handsome, and much caressed by women; but he valued himself only on two qualities that he did not possess: the ability to ride a horse like the cove in the poem, and to drink any man under the table.

'Oh, Aubrey,' cried he, 'how very sorry I am to hear about Surprise.'

'Never mind,' said Jack. 'This is St Groper's day, the patron of topers: no tears on St Groper's day. William, a tankard of the same for Captain Parker.' The club had particularly elegant silver tankards and this one looked finer than usual as it came frosted all over on a shining salver. 'St Groper,' said Jack, 'and his immortal memory in one heroic swig. Waste not a drop.'

Parker did manfully, but he weighed nine stone against Jack's sixteen, and he had not tramped about London all day. Although he himself proposed the second can, it was his undoing: after sitting with a fixed, artificial smile on his pale face for some minutes he made a barely coherent excuse and hurried from the room.

Jack settled back in his chair and contemplated the evening tide in St James's Street. There had been a long-lasting levee at the palace, and quantities of unusually gorgeous officers were to be seen, scarlet and gold, gleaming with silver and steel and plumed like Agamemnon, hurrying anxiously towards Piccadilly for fear of the coming shower. The more provident had servants with umbrellas, and some, tucking up their swords, dashed with jangling spurs into one or another of the clubs along the street. There were several, and almost immediately opposite Jack's window stood Button's, to which General Aubrey belonged. Jack was also a member, but he hardly ever went there, not caring much for his company, which consisted of exceedingly rich men - it had more dukes than any other - and a fair number of blackguards, sometimes of excellent family.

Once the officers had reached shelter, civilians took over the street again, and Jack observed with regret that the fine coloured coats of his youth were losing more and more ground to black, which, though well enough in particular cases, gave the far pavement a mourning air. To be sure, bottle-green, claret-coloured, and bright blue did appear now and then, but the far side of the street was not the flower-garden that once it had been. And pantaloons were almost universal among the young.

A good many acquaintances passed by. Blenkinsop of the Foreign Office, looking superior. Waddon, a Hampshire neighbour and an excellent creature but now very far from happy on the back of a recently-purchased horse that advanced sideways down towards the clock-tower, foaming and farting; and as soon as the half-hour struck the animal (a light chestnut gelding) uttered a kind of scream and rushed into the narrow alley by Lock's. He saw Waddon emerge, looking sullen, having apparently abandoned the animal. He saw Wray of the Admiralty and another man whose name he could not recall walk into Button's, both in black; more black coats followed them; then came the old familiar bright blue, and without much surprise Jack recognized his father.

At one time it must have been possible to love General Aubrey, since he had married a thoroughly amiable woman, Jack's mother; but for the last twenty years and more even his dogs had felt no affection for him. His mind was almost wholly taken up with the notion of gaining money by some expedient or other; at one time he had felled all the timber on their land, although the trees were not even half mature, thus doing Jack a sad ill-turn at almost no profit to himself; and he now associated with some very odd creatures on the fringes of banking, insurance and property development. He had also blasted Jack's chance of inheriting an impoverished but reparable estate by marrying his dairymaid, at the cost of a swingeing settlement, and by begetting another son.

Yet Jack had a strong sense of filial piety and he had written a note in which he urged his father to put every penny he could into the securities on Palmer's list, saying that his recommendations could not be explained and must remain secret. He had meant to hand this letter in, no more: but now, seeing that tall bony figure grasp the railings to heave himself up the steps he said 'Damn it, he is my father, after all. I shall go and ask him how he does.' 'If you do,' replied his somewhat clouded intelligence, 'you will have to deal with questions.' 'Not at all,' he said, 'I have only to say that I am bound to silence - have given my word - for him to understand,' and finishing his wine he walked across the street.

'Well, Jack, how beest?' cried the General, recognizing him. 'Have you been away?'

'Yes, sir. I have been in the Pacific.'

'And now you are back. Capital, capital.' The General seemed quite pleased. 'I dare say Sophie was glad to see you,' he said, pleased with himself again for having remembered her name, so pleased that he asked Jack what he would take.

'That is very kind of you, sir, but I have just had three cans of champagne over the way, on a pretty nearly empty stomach, and I can distinctly feel it. But perhaps I might have some coffee.'

'Nonsense,' cried his father. 'Don't you be a goddam milksop. Good wine never did a man any harm. We will stick with the champagne.'

While the first glasses were going down Jack made civil inquiries about his step-mother and her son. 'A couple of silly bitches, both on 'em, perpetually lamenting,' replied the General. He poured more wine and then after a pause he said again, 'But I dare say Sophie was glad to see you.'

'I hope she will be,' said Jack, 'but I have not been home yet. Capital wine, sir: fruitier than ours. No, I have not been home: the cartel landed me at Dover and I thought it better to come through London first.'

'I remember that young whoremaster of a lieutenant of yours had the cartel ship at one time. What was his name?'

'Babbington, sir. Now it is Harry Tennant.'

'Harbrook's son? Well, so Harry Tennant has the cartel ship, has he?'

'Yes, sir,' said Jack, wishing he had never mentioned the wretched tub; he had forgotten how his father loved to pick upon some little often irrelevant piece of information and worry it to death. 'May we go and sit in a quiet corner of the south room? I have something very important to tell you about buying stock.'

'The Devil you have?' said the General, looking at him keenly. 'Come along, then, and bring your wine. But you must talk quick. I have some people coming. Where did you get that horrible coat?' he asked, leading the way. 'I wish you may not have been robbing a scarecrow.'

In the south room Jack said to himself 'I had better not talk much.' He sat at a writing-table and quickly copied out the essence of his letter. 'There, sir,' he said, giving the list to his father. 'I do most earnestly urge you to place every penny you can spare in these,' and in the clearest terms he could devise he stated the anonymous, entirely confidential nature of his information. He said that he could answer no questions, and emphasized the fact that he had pledged his word that the knowledge should not go beyond two of his closest friends. His honour was immediately concerned.

The General watched him with shrewd, searching eyes until he had finished, then opened his mouth to speak; but before any word came out a footman hurried in to say that his guests had arrived.

'Stay there, Jack,' said the General, putting down his empty glass. A few minutes later he brought three men into the room. With a sinking heart Jack saw that one of them was his father's stockbroker and the other two were showily dressed citizens of the kind he saw only too often whenever he went down to his boyhood home: he remembered that when his father wished to impress associates of this kind he would bring them here and show them a duke or two.

'This is my son,' cried the General, 'though you would not expect it from his age: I first married very young, very young indeed. He is a post-captain in the Navy, and he is just home from the seas. Landed at Dover from the cartel but yesterday and he is already advising his old father about investments, ha, ha, ha! James, a magnum of this same wine.'

'The Captain and I are old friends,' said the stockbroker, patting Jack's reluctant shoulder. 'And I can tell you, General, he understands investment very well.'

'So you came on the cartel boat, sir,' said one of the others. 'Then perhaps you can tell us the latest news from Paris. Lord, suppose Napoleon was really dead! Lord, suppose the war was to come to an end! Only think!'

'The cartel?' said the stockbroker, who had missed the first mention of it.

'Understands investment?' said the General, and they both looked at Jack.

The wine came in: the cork flew off: 'I always say there's nothing like sham,' said one of the General's guests.

Jack sat there, drinking glass for glass and evading questions, until the bottle was out. On being called upon for his opinion about the progress of the war and its probable duration he uttered a fine series of platitudes: he heard himself doing so at a slight distance, not without satisfaction. But when his father suggested that they should all go to Vauxhall he absolutely declined: filial piety had its limits - they had been far surpassed - and he possessed a perfect excuse - 'I am not really dressed for town,' he said, 'let alone for Vauxhall in decent company.'

'Perhaps not,' said one of the simpler, more drunken, more highly decorated guests. 'But everybody makes excuses for our gallant tars. Do come. I'll stand treat. It will be such fun. Only think!'

'Thank you for my wine, sir,' said Jack to his father. 'Gentlemen, good night.' He bowed, and with his eye fixed sternly upon the door he steered straight for the open space, upright, rigid, never breathing, and never deviating an inch from his course.

CHAPTER FIVE

Stephen Maturin turned from the Strand down into the liberties of the Savoy. It was a familiar path, so familiar that of their own accord his feet avoided the worst chasms in the paving, the iron grid that before now had given beneath his modest weight, plunging him down a coal-hole, and the filthy gutter; and this was just as well, since his mind was far away: he was, as Jack had observed, intensely anxious about Diana, so anxious and apprehensive that he was going to the Grapes in order to change and be shaved before presenting himself at Half-Moon Street and in order to have news of her, since she would surely have passed by - she and Mrs Broad, the landlady, were great friends, and both paid too much attention to his linen.

His mind was far away, and the shock was therefore all the greater when, having turned the corner to the inn, he looked up and saw nothing but a blackened hole railed off from the street, with rain-water shining in its cellars, a few charred beams showing where the floors had been, and grass and ferns growing in the niches that had once been cupboards.

The dwelling-houses on either hand seemed untouched; so were the shops on the Westminster side of the street, untouched and busy, with people hurrying up and down as though the horrible sight were commonplace. He crossed, to check his bearings and make doubly sure that this was indeed the shell of the Grapes and not some spatial illusion; and as he stood there he felt a gentle pressure on the back of his leg. Turning, he saw a large rough ugly yard-dog bowing and waving his tail; his lips were writhed back in a grin that might express pleasure or extreme rage, and Stephen instantly recognized the butcher's mongrel. He was not a promiscuous dog; he belonged firmly to the butcher; but he and Stephen had always passed the time of day. and there was a steady, long-standing affection between the two.

'Why, if it ain't the Doctor,' said the butcher. 'I thought it must be you, as soon as I see him bowing and scraping like a French Punch and Judy. You are looking at the poor old Grapes, I do suppose.'

The fire had happened about the time the Surprise left Gibraltar: nobody had been hurt, but the insurance company disputed the claim and Mrs Broad could not rebuild until they paid up; in the meantime she had gone down to her friends in Essex, sadly missed by the whole neighbourhood. 'Every time I look across the way,' said the butcher, pointing with his knife, 'I feel the Liberty has a wound in it.'

A wound, and a strangely unexpected one, thought Stephen, walking north. He had had no idea how much that quiet haven meant to him; there were also some fairly important collections he had left there, mostly of birds' skins, many books... The immeasurably greater wound, 'Mrs Maturin does not live here any more,' delivered at the Half-Moon Street house lacked that sudden staggering quality and for the moment it shocked him less.

He walked steadily towards St James's Street, saying 'I shall most deliberately feel nothing until I have some confirmation: there are a thousand possible explanations.'

Jack's club was not the kind of place that Stephen would have joined of his own accord, but Diana had made a point of it; she had made many of her friends as well as Jack support his candidature, and he had been a member for some time now.

'Good morning, sir,' said the hall porter. 'I have some letters for you, and a uniform-case.'

'Thank you,' said Stephen, taking the letters. The only one of consequence was on top and he broke the seal as he walked up the stairs. It began

Why should a foolish marriage vow,

Which long ago was made,

Oblige us to each other now,

When passion is decayed?

Between this and the last paragraph came a close-packed section, much underlined and not clearly legible in this light. The lines of the last paragraph were spaced wider; it was written more calmly and with a different pen, and it said 'Your best uniform came just after you had left,

so rather than leave it at the Grapes, where the mice and moths swarm prodigiously in spite of all good Mrs Broad can do, I shall send it to the club. And Stephen, I do beg you will remember to put on a warm flannel undershirt and drawers when you are in England: you will find some on top of the uniform and some underneath it.'