The Reverse of the Medal (31 page)

'I do not,' said Stephen. 'It seems to me that onlookers are strangely out of place. But I have taken the liberty of desiring a message to be sent to me here.'

'Excellent,' said Sir Joseph. 'But I am afraid the sentence will shock you. Quinborough may not imprison, but he will jet out his venom in some other way. This was a very vile job, you know - the other men having bail so that they might walk off when they were found guilty -Aubrey alone held in prison. Of course there was the political side, the destruction of the Radicals, which was perfectly comprehensible in those whose political passions incline them that way; but there was some hidden malice as well, and this inveteracy against your friend...'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Mrs Barlow. 'A message for Dr Maturin.'

'Open it, I beg,' said Sir Joseph.

'Pillory,' said Stephen in a hard, cold voice. 'Fine and the pillory. Shall pay the King a fine of two thousand five hundred pounds and be set in and upon the pillory opposite the Royal Exchange in the City of London for one hour between the hours of twelve at noon and two in the afternoon.'

'I was afraid of it,' said Blaine after a long pause: and then 'Tell me, Maturin, have you ever seen a man pilloried in England?'

'I have not.'

'It can be a very bloody spectacle, on occasion. Oates was nearly killed; many people are maimed; and I once saw both a man's eyes put out by pelting. Since there is an evident personal malignance here, might you not be well advised to hire a guard of bruisers? Your thief-taker would know where to find them: he would recruit them for you.'

'I shall send to him at once: thank you for this warning, Blaine. Now tell me, what do you think of Lady Hertford?'

'Do you mean physically, or morally, or socially?'

'As a means for preventing Jack Aubrey's name being struck off the list. Mrs Fitzherbert advised me to apply to her.'

'Struck off he must necessarily be. That is the invariable rule. The real question is restoration to the list. It has been done, even with the former seniority, when officers have been dismissed the service for duels and that kind of thing, and occasionally for harmless false musters, though it generally takes a very long time and a great deal of influence. But in a case like this... Do you know the lady?'

'Only to bow to. But I understand that at present she is all-powerful with the Regent, and I am told that Andrew Wray is well with her. It occurred to me that with a proper introduction and a proper present I might perhaps induce her at least to start the matter moving in the royal mind.'

'It might conceivably answer. But at present the royal mind is in Scotland, displaying the full bulk of the royal form in a little cloth petticoat to his knees, a tartan cloak, particoloured stockings and a highland bonnet; and I rather fancy Lady Hertford is with him. If you like I will enquire and let you know.'

'That would be kind. In the meanwhile I shall call at Grosvenor Street on my way to the Marshalsea.'

'You know of course that between an odious woman and a clever showy coxcomb like Wray you are likely to lose both your present and your time?'

'Of course. Good day to you now, dear Blaine.'

Mr. Wray was not at home when Dr Maurin called at Grosvenor Street, but Mrs. Wray was: she heard him give his name at the door, came running down the stairs and seized both his hands. She was ordinarily rather a plain, thick, swarthy young woman but now she looked almost pretty: her face glowed and her eyes sparkled with generous indignation. She had already heard the news and she cried out 'Oh how unjust! Oh how wicked! The pillory for a naval officer - it is unthinkable. And he is so brave, so distinguished, so handsome. Come into my room.' She led him into a little boudoir all hung about with pictures of ships, some of them commanded by her father, but more commanded by Captain Aubrey in the days when Babbington served under him. 'And so tall. He used to take such kind notice of me when I was only an awkward lump of a girl, though my father was very hard on him sometimes. Charles thinks the whole world of him - Captain Babbington, I mean - and fairly worships him. And Dr Maturin,' she added in another tone and with a conscious look, 'Charles values your advice most amazingly: I am so glad. He put into the Downs last night.' Then resuming, 'But oh to think of his poor wife, standing there helpless while he is pelted - it is monstrous, monstrous. And the shame of it all, the hooting and the jeers, must kill him, sure.'

'As for that, ma'am, you are forgetting that he is innocent, which must do away with the bite of shame.'

'Of course, of course, he is innocent: that must make a vast great difference. Not that I should have cared if he had rigged the market ten times over: everybody does it. I know Mr Wray made a great deal at the same time. But oh, Dr Maturin, pray sit down. Where are my wits? What would Charles think of me? Pray take a glass of madeira.'

'Thank you, ma'am, but I must away. I am bound for the Marshalsea itself.'

'Then please, please give him my most respectful -no, most affectionate compliments, and to Mrs Aubrey my best love. And if there is anything I can possibly do- children, or looking after cats...'

As they came out of the boudoir the front door opened. Two chairmen supported Wray up the steps; two footmen took him over with practised hands; and as they propelled him across the hail he turned his blotched face towards Stephen and said

'A beaten wife and a cuckold swain

Have jointly cursed the marriage chain.'

At the Marshalsea Stephen found it difficult to make his way through the naval side because of the number of sailors gathered there, most of them talking at the same time and all of them exceedingly angry. Even the most gin-sodden and nearly demented still retained a very high notion of the service, and the idea of a sea-officer, a post captain, standing in the pillory was an intolerable outrage, an' insult to the whole Navy. Stephen was obliged to hear a petition read out and to put his name to it before he could go on. The prisoners had left the skittle-ground below Jack's building empty, out of deference to his feelings, which they would scarcely have done if he had been sentenced to be hanged; and Killick was sitting on the bottom step, looking stunned, as though his world had been destroyed.

As he went up the stairs, Stephen heard Jack's fiddle: it was a severe fugue, played with uncommon strength and austerity; and when, having waited for the full close, Stephen tapped and opened the door, he was met with a fierce, cold glare. 'I beg pardon, Jack,' he said, 'I thought you said Come in.'

'Oh,' cried Jack, his face relaxing, 'I took you for -I am very happy to see you, Stephen. Sit down: Sophie has just stepped out to buy some chops.' He collected himself, laid down his fiddle and bow, and turning his massive form squarely to Maturin he said, not without a certain constraint and formality, 'She told me about Surprise. I am exceedingly grateful for your offer and I should of course be delighted to command her as a private ship of war. But Stephen, I do not quite understand. Can you indeed fit her out, as well as buying her? For once I have paid my fine -,

'An iniquitous fine.'

'Aye, but whining will do no good. Once I have paid my fine and my losses on the market, I shall be of no use; and fitting out a ship for even a short cruise is far, far more costly than you can imagine.'

'Brother, I told you I had inherited from my godfather.'

'Yes. I remember you mentioned it when first we came home. But - forgive me for prying into your affairs, Stephen - I had imagined it was a little bequest for books, a mourning-ring, a keepsake, the usual kind of thing from one's godfather: and very handsome too I am sure.'

'It was in fact very much more than that, so very much more that we need not look attentively at each penny before we spend it. We shall carry on our private war in style.' Stephen stood up to peer out of the window at the evening sky, and now, looking back into the room, he saw Jack in the full north light, sitting as though for his portrait. He seemed broader than before, heavier, profoundly grave of course, and somewhat leonine; but beneath the unmoved gravity Stephen perceived a wound that was hardly affected by the news of the Surprise; and in the hope of easing it to some degree he added 'And in the strictest confidence, my dear, I may tell you that our war will not be entirely private either. You know something of my activities; and at intervals of harrying the enemy's commerce I may have errands of that kind to run.' Jack took the point; he expressed his pleasure with a polite inclination of his head and the appearance of a smile; and the pain remained unaffected. Stephen continued, 'This damned spiteful pillory, brother. It is of no essential importance to an innocent man, but it is bound to be unpleasant, like a toothache: I have given you many a draught for the toothache, so I have, and here is one' - taking a small bottle from his pocket -'that will make the pillory pass like little more than a dream: disagreeable, but only faintly disagreeable, and at a distance. I have often used it myself, with great effect.'

'Thankee, Stephen,' said Jack, setting the bottle on the mantelshelf. Stephen saw that he had no intention of taking it, and that the underlying pain was quite untouched. For to Jack Aubrey the fact of no longer belonging to the Navy counted more than a thousand pillories, the loss of fortune, loss of rank, and loss of future. It was in a way a loss of being, and to those who knew him well it gave his eyes, his whole face, the strangest look.

He still had this detached grey expression on the following Wednesday, as he stood in a bare dirty room on the south side of Cornhill waiting to be led out to the pillory.

The sheriff's men and the constables in charge of him were all clustered together at the window: they were intensely nervous and they kept up a continual flow of talk.

'It did ought to have been done days ago, right after the sentence. The news has had time to go down to the Land's End and up to John o' Groats.'

'And every fucking port in the kingdom: Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Plymouth...'

'Sweeting's Alley is quite blocked up.'

'So is Castle Alley, and more is coming in. They ought to have sent for the soldiers long ago.'

'We have four constables, four scavengers and one beadle in the ward. What can we do with such a crowd?'

'If we get out of this alive, I shall take my wife and children down to live the other side of Epping.'

'They keep pouring up from the river. There are the chaps from the press-tender itself, with their bloody cutlasses and bludgeons, Christ have mercy.'

'They are blocking each side of the Change with carts. God help us.'

'Why don't he give the word? Why don't Mr Essex give the word? They are growing outrageous down there. We shall all be scragged.'

Saint Paul's and the City churches had tolled twelve some five or ten minutes ago and the crowd in Cornhill was becoming impatient. 'Eight bells,' cried some. 'Eight bells, there. Turn the glass and strike the bell.'

'Bring him out, bring him out, bring him out and let's have a look at him,' shouted the leader of another group. He was the leader of a band hired by some disappointed stock-jobbers, and like his fellows he carried a bag of stones. Bonden turned sharp upon him and said 'What are you doing here, mate?'

'I've come to see the fun.'

'Then just you go and see the fun at Hockley in the Hole, that's where, cully.

Because why?

Because this is for seamen only, do you see. Seamen only, not landsmen.'

The man looked at Bonden, and at the many closed, dead-serious, lowering faces behind him; brown, tough, often earringed, often pigtailed; he looked at his own people, a pale and weedy crew, and with hardly a pause he said 'Well, I don't care. Have it your own way, sailor.'

Davis, a very big, ugly, dangerous man who had sailed with Jack in many commissions, had an even shorter way of dealing with Wray's gang of genuine bruisers, who stood out most surprisingly in their flash clothes and low-crowned hats among the now almost solid naval mass - most of the citizens, even the apprentices and the street-boys hawking pails of filth had withdrawn beyond the barrier or to neighbouring buildings. Davis, with his four uglier brothers and a dumb Negro bosun's mate, went straight to them and in a thick voice, choking with fury, said 'Bugger off.' He watched them go and then shouldered his brutal way through his shipmates to where Stephen was standing by the steps of the pillory with the few pugilists his thief-taker had managed to engage - men equally conspicuous. To them he said 'And you bugger off too. We mean you no harm, gents, but you bugger off too.' There was white spittle at his mouth and he was breathing very hard. Stephen nodded to his men and they sidled away towards St Michael's. As they reached the church its clock struck the quarter, and Mr Essex gave the word at last.

Jack was led out of the dark room into the strong light, and as they guided him up the steps he could see nothing for the glare. 'Your head here sir, if you please,' said the sheriff's man in a low, nervous, conciliating voice, 'and your hands just here.'

The man was slowly fumbling with the bolt, hinge and staple, and as Jack stood there with his hands in the lower half-rounds, his sight cleared: he saw that the broad street was filled with silent, attentive men, some in long togs, some in shore-going rig, some in plain frocks, but all perfectly recognizable as seamen. And officers, by the dozen, by the score: midshipmen and officers. Babbington was there, immediately in front of the pillory, facing him with his hat off, and Pullings, Stephen of course, Mowett, Dundas... He nodded to them, with almost no change in his iron expression, and his eye moved on: Parker, Rowan, Williamson, Hervey... and men from long, long ago, men he could scarcely name, lieutenants and commanders putting their promotion at risk, midshipmen and master's mates their commissions, warrant-officers their advancement.

'The head a trifle forward, if you please sir,' murmured the sheriff's man, and the upper half of the wooden frame came down, imprisoning his defenceless face. He heard the click of the bolt and then in the dead silence a strong voice cry 'Off hats'. With one movement hundreds of broad-brimmed tarpaulin-covered hats flew off and the cheering began, the fierce full-throated cheering he had so often heard in battle.