The Reverse of the Medal (22 page)

Three fielders ran in Stephen's direction, all gazing up and spreading their hands, while others called 'Heads, heads!' or 'Stand from under'. Stephen's mind was far away: he had noticed neither the stroke nor the flight of the ball, but one of the few things he had learnt at sea - learnt painfully and thoroughly - was that Stand from under usually preceded, but only just preceded, a downpour of boiling pitch, or the fall of a very heavy block, or that of a needle-pointed marline-spike, and he hurried anxiously away, crouching, with his hands protecting his head, an unlucky move that brought him into collision with one fielder who was running backwards and with another already poised where the ball was about to come down. They fell in a confused heap from which he was extracted amidst cries of 'It's the Doctor,' 'Are you hurt, sir?' and 'Why can't you look where you are a-coming to, you clumsy ox?' - this to the Tartarus's yeoman of the sheets, who had held the catch in spite of everything and who rose through the welter of limbs, triumphantly holding it up.

'Well, Stephen,' said Jack, leading him to the refreshment cart, after he had been brushed down and put to rights, with his wig set straight on his head, 'so you have come down by the night coach, I find: how glad I am you found a place. I did not look to see you till tomorrow, or I should have left a note. You must have been quite amazed to find the house all ahoo. Will you take a can of beer, or should you prefer cold punch?'

'Would there be any coffee, at all? I missed my breakfast.'

'Missed your breakfast? God's my life, how very shocking. Let us walk up and brew a pot - there are five wickets to fall, and Plaice and Killick will stick there like limpets: we have plenty of time.'

'Where is Sophie?' asked Stephen.

'She is not here!' cried Jack. 'She is away, gone to Ireland with the children and her mother - Frances is having a baby. Ain't it amazing? I looked pretty blank when I reached the house and found no family at all, I can tell you. Nobody, and even old Bray down at the ale-house, toping. She had no idea we were in this hemisphere, even, but she is leaving the children and posting back directly: with any luck we shall see her on Tuesday, or even Monday.'

'I hope so, indeed.'

'Lord, Stephen, how I look forward to it,' said Jack, laughing at the prospect; and then after they had been walking for a few moments, 'But in the meanwhile, here we are all a-high-lone, a parcel of poor miserable bachelors. Luckily the Tartarus is in, to keep up our spirits, and there are so many old Surprises here and in Pompey that by including the youngsters and even your Padeen, God help us, we were able to get up a team to play them, although Mowett and Pullings had to go up to town to see the publisher - you only just missed them, which was a great pity, for two men in a higher state of nervous tremor I have never seen, and they would have profited from one of your comfortable slime-draughts. Still, a team we have, and the Goat and Compasses is going to send our dinner out to the field; you would not believe how well the Goat cooks venison - it eats as tender as veal. Look, Stephen, you see this corner of the wood and the shrubbery? I mean to cut the ground right back so that the new wing shall have a terrace and a fine stretch of grass. A lawn, if you understand me. I have always wanted a lawn; and perhaps I might be luckier with grass than with flowers.'

'So there is to be a new wing?'

'Oh Lord yes! We were most horribly cramped, you know; and with three children and a mother-in-law who often comes to stay it was like living in a cutter, all hugger-mugger, cheek by jowl, fourteen inches to a hammock, no more. And Sophie said that without more cupboards, she really could not go on. There is Dray, turning into the yard. The gig, there! The gig ahoy! I sent him into Portsmouth for the newspapers.'

The gig wheeled about. 'How are we doing, sir?' cried the one-legged seaman as he drove in across the sacred gravel and handed out The Times, touching his forehead to Stephen with the other hand.

'Forty-eight for five,' said Jack. 'We shall wipe Tartarus's eye, with any luck. Cut along down: I will put the gig away.'

Dray fastened his wooden stump, unshipped for the drive, and pegged away down the slope as fast as ever he could go; for although his playing days were over, he was a most ardent critic. The gig itself scarcely needed putting away. It was attached to a very short-legged, short-sighted, deaf, meek animal of uncertain age carefully chosen for Sophie, who feared and disliked horses, as well she might, having been made to ride an iron-mouthed biter when she was far too young and having seen various hunters break her husband's ribs and collar-bones, while the running horses might have run off with her daughters' portions, had the capital not been tied up. The present animal, Moses, walked quietly towards the yard, peering in its purblind way at Jack as he unfolded The Times to reach the financial page. Still reading, Jack opened the door of a palatial loose-box: Stephen cast off the gig, Moses walked in, lay down, uttered a deep sigh, and closed his eyes.

'It is even better than I had thought,' said Jack, and his shining face was younger by a good ten years. 'How I hope you profited by what I said.'

'Sure, I took notice of your advice,' replied Stephen, with no particular emphasis, and Jack knew that he should learn no more.

'We shall certainly have a really spacious terrace, perhaps with fountains. And there is a good deal to be said for a billiard-room too, on days when it is raining very hard,' said Jack. He led the way to the kitchen, opened the door of the little stove and plied the bellows till the charcoal glowed almost white. 'You must forgive the smell of paint,' he said, fetching down the coffee-mill, 'we laid on the first coat yesterday.' The rest of his words were drowned by the sound of grinding.

They drank their grateful brew outside, walking up and down in the pure soft air while Stephen (an abstemious soul) ate two thin biscuits. When the pot was drunk, Jack cocked his ear to a roaring from the cricket-field. 'Perhaps we had better be going down again,' he said; and on the way, looking back in the narrow path, he said with a singularly sweet smile, 'Did I tell you I mean to buy Surprise? She can moor in a private ordinary at Porchester.'

'Heavens, Jack! Is not this a very onerous undertaking? I seem to remember that Government gave twenty thousand pounds for the Chesapeake.'

'Yes, but that was mostly to encourage others to go and do likewise. Selling out of the service is another thing. I doubt Surprise will fetch anything like so much.'

'How does one set about buying a ship?'

'You have to be there yourself, with cash in hand -well hit, sir, well hit.' Honey, a very dangerous crossbat smiter, had struck the ball in a high arc towards the approaching waggon from the Goat and Compasses, a waggon bearing the cricketers' dinner and drawn very deliberately by a pair of cows.

Honey dealt with the next ball in much the same way, but a cunning Tartarus, the ship's corporal and up to any guardo move, had lingered there: he caught the ball - Honey was out, the innings was over, and in an excess of gaiety the men unharnessed the cows and ran the waggon at breakneck pace to their respective captains.

'Padeen, now,' said Stephen in Irish to his servant, a huge, gentle Munsterman with a great stutter and small knowledge of any other language, 'and did you score a run, at all?'

'I believe I did, sir dear; but then I ran back, and will it ever be counted to me, who can tell?'

'Who indeed?' said Stephen, who had played the game once, in the Spice Islands, but who had never quite mastered the finer points; nor, for that matter, the coarser ones either.

'Will your honour explain the Saxon game perhaps?'

'I might,' said Stephen. 'When the venison pasty and sure it is the venison pasty of the world is finished I will ask the little captain to tell me its whole nature, he having played for the Gentlemen of Hampshire; and you are to understand that what Thomond is to the hurling, so Hampshire is to the cricket.'

The little captain was Babbington, and he certainly knew a great deal about the game; but rarely, rarely would his shipmates, his former shipmates, his superior officer or his subordinates allow him to finish a sentence of his explanation. The seven pasties, the ten apple pies, the unlimited bread and cheese, and the four kegs of beer might have been expected to have a deadening effect, but no: every man there present and even some of the beardless miscellaneous such as youngsters and Marine Society boys had particular views on the origins of cricket, on what constituted fair bowling, on the number of stumps

in their grandfather's time, and the best way of using a bat; and one of Babbington's own midshipmen quarrelled with his definition of a wide. Nobody contradicted Captain Aubrey, who in any case had gone to sleep leaning against the wheel of the cart with his hat over his face, but they wrangled so pertinaciously among themselves that Babbington invited Stephen to walk round the field to be shown the positions of square leg, long-stop, and mid on.

He soon dismissed the remaining points of fielding and observed that tomorrow he hoped to show Stephen the difference between a slow, dead wicket and one upon which the ball would really turn.

'You will never play all this afternoon and all tomorrow too, for God's love?' cried Stephen, shocked out of civility by the thought of such insufferable tedium drawn out to such unconscionable length.

'Oh yes. It would have been a three-day match, only with Mrs Aubrey coming home, the house must be turned out, swabbed and flogged dry, and the paintwork touched up: still, with the long evenings I dare say we shall each have our two innings. But sir,' said Babbington after a silence, and in quite a different tone, 'one of the many reasons I was so glad to hear from the Captain that you was coming down was that I wanted to ask your advice.'

'Ah?' said Stephen. In former times this had usually meant a question of a medical nature (his companions had once persuaded the very young and costive Babbington that he was going to have a baby) or a request for the loan of sums varying from sixpence to as much as half a guinea; but that was long ago, and now Babbington had a considerable estate, which included a parliamentary borough as rotten as a borough could well be; and it was no longer probable that he should think himself pregnant.

'Well, the fact of the matter is, sir,' said Babbington, 'and not to put too fine a point on it - I mean, it is better to be plain. I dare say you remember that Admiral Harte cut up uncommon rough when he found me - well, kissing his daughter?'

'I remember he made use of some illiberal expressions.'

'He did worse than that. He shut Fanny up, and he beat her when he found we corresponded. And then he married her to Andrew Wray, swearing she should never go to a play or a ball unless she consented and that anyhow I was pursuing the Governor's daughter in Antigua - it was notorious - it was common knowledge. But, however, not to put too fine a point upon it, the fact of the matter is, when I brought Dryad home - you remember Dryad, sir? Such a weatherly ship - we happened to meet at a ball, and we found that we were as fond of one another as ever: more so, if possible.'

'Listen, William my dear,' said Stephen, 'if you wish me to advise you to commit adultery...'

'No, no, sir,' cried Babbington, smiling. 'No, I don't need any advice about adultery. My point is this - but perhaps I should explain the position. I dare say you knew the Admiral was uncommon rich? And everyone said what a prodigious heiress Fanny would be and what a fine match for Wray. But what they did not know was that he can scarcely get at a penny without her consent. And they don't agree - never have - how could they agree? As different as chalk and cheese. He is a wretched scrub of a fellow that drinks too much and cannot hold his wine, and he beats her: he told her openly he had only married her for her money. It seems he is in debt up to the ears: the bailiffs are often in the house, and they have to be staved off by one shift or another.'

'My visit must have been mighty importunate,' reflected Stephen.

'But I am not to be blackguarding the man,' said Babbington. 'My point is this: you saw a good deal of him in Malta, and you see farther through a brick wall than most people, so which do you think the wisest thing to do? There is the idea of making over some share

of Fanny's fortune, on the understanding that they keep up the appearance of being married but in fact each go their own way; but I am told that no contract to that effect would be binding and he would have to be trusted. And then there is the idea of bolting and letting him sue me for crim con - for damages for criminal conversation.'

'Sir, sir,' cried a youngster, running up behind them, 'the Captain is awake, and asks do you choose to start your innings now, since there will be so much to do Saturday?'

'I shall come at once,' said Babbington, and in a low voice to Stephen, 'Will you turn it over in your mind, sir, and tell me what you think?'

Although he knew that in cases of this kind any advice that did not exactly agree with the wishes of those concerned was always useless and often offensive Stephen did turn it over in his mind all through that interminable afternoon while the Tartaruses built up their score, mostly in singles and byes. Their captain of the forecastle faced the bowling first, a square, middle-aged seaman who had been at the siege of Gibraltar in his youth and who had never forgotten the value of dogged resistance; neither he nor the carpenter was there for frivolous amusement and they fairly broke the hearts of the bowlers, who sent down fast straight balls, fast balls well outside the wicket, tempting lobs and cunning twisters, all in vain until the declining sun, shining in Gibraltar's eye, caused him to miss a despairing full toss directed at his middle stump.

The next day's play was somewhat less rigid, with the Tartaruses leaving Jack's team two hundred and fifty-five to get before owl-hoot and the Surprises beating the ball about the field in a brisk, seamanlike fashion, but by now it was too late: as far as Stephen was concerned cricket was marked down for ever as an intolerably insipid pastime, decorative enough for half an hour, perhaps, but not to be compared with hurling for speed, skill, grace of movement, and dramatic fire.