The Reverse of the Medal (33 page)

'Life is not worth it,' he said, and went to bed with Martin's pamphlet, an accurate, well-informed statement of abuses in the service, and in the present circumstances perhaps the most impolitic essay ever written by a naval chaplain; for Mrs Martin had brought him no fortune whatsoever and he had no benefice nor any prospect of a benefice - he had relied entirely upon Jack Aubrey's patronage, Jack Aubrey's permanence.

One of the reasons there was so much travelling between France and England was the presence of the Comte de Lille, the de jure King Louis XVIII, at Hartwell in Buckinghamshire. His advisers were constantly in touch with the various royalist groups, particularly those in Paris, and since some of Buonaparte's ministers thought it wise to insure against all eventualities they not only connived at this traffic but even sent emissaries of their own with messages that usually contained expressions of respect and good will but little else - nothing concrete. The number of these messengers rose and fell with Buonaparte's fortunes - there had been very few lately - and the figures provided the British intelligence services with a fairly accurate idea of the climate of informed opinion in Paris.

'It will probably be one of them,' said Stephen, as his coach carried him swiftly towards the Regent's park. Yet on the other hand, he reflected, the French intelligence services had very soon taken to slipping their own people in among these messengers, or if not their own people then those uneasy particoloured creatures the double or even triple agents, and conceivably the sender of the bones might be one of these. Obviously it was a man who knew that Stephen had been invited to Paris to address the Institut de France on the solitaire, a man who knew of his connexion with the Royal Society and of the interchange between Banks and Cuvier; but that was no really close identification. Thoroughly undesirable people might also know these things. 'I am glad I dug out my pistols,' he said. 'Though how I shall ever bring myself to face that chest again, I do not know.'

'Here we are, my lord,' said the driver. 'And an uncommon quick run it was.'

'So we are,' said Stephen, 'and so it was.'

Yet in spite of their quick run he was not first at the rendezvous. Leaning on the white rails at the end of the road and looking out over the grass that stretched away and away to the north, Stephen saw a solitary figure pacing to and fro with a book in his hand.

There was no sun, but the high pale sky sent down a strong diffused light and Stephen. recognized the man almost at once. He smiled, ducked under the rail and walked out over the rough meadow towards the distant figure. Far to the west a flock of sheep were grazing, white on the vivid green: he passed a hare in her form, clapped close with her ears flat, persuaded she was invisible and so near he could have touched her, and at a suitable distance he called out 'Duhamel, I am happy to see you again,' taking off his hat as he did so.

Duhamel looked much older, much greyer, much more worn than when last they parted, but he returned Stephen's salute with equal cheerfulness and said that he too was delighted to see Maturin, adding that 'he hoped he saw him well'.

'I am truly sorry to have brought you to this remote spot,' said Stephen, 'but since I did not know who you were, it appeared to me that extreme discretion was best for all concerned. How clever of you to find it.' -

'Oh, I know it well,' said Duhamel. 'I was shooting here last autumn with my English correspondent. Unhappily we had only borrowed guns and wretched dogs, but I shot four hares and he shot two and a pheasant. We must have seen thirty or forty. Hares, I mean, not pheasants.'

'You are fond of shooting, Duhamel?'

'Yes. Though I far prefer fishing. Sitting on the bank of a quiet stream and watching a float seems to me present happiness itself.' He paused, and went on 'I must apologise for communicating with you in such an improper fashion, but the last time I was in London I found your inn destroyed - I did not know any other direction, and I could scarcely carry this to the Admiralty without fear of compromising you.' He brought out a little packet of jeweller's cotton, opened it, and there in the strong light was the immediate blaze of the diamond, no longer a memory but actual, and far more brilliant, far bluer than Stephen's mental image, a most glorious thing, cold and heavy in his hand.

'Thank you,' he said, slipping it into his breeches pocket after a long moment's silent gaze, 'I am very much indebted to you, Duhamel.'

'It was the bargain,' said Duhamel. 'And there is only one man to thank, if thanks are due, and that is d'Anglars. You may call him a paederast if you choose, but he is the only man of his word I know among all that rotten bunch of self-seeking politicians. He insisted upon its return.'

'I hope in time to make my acknowledgements. So will the lady, I am sure,' said Stephen. 'Shall we walk back towards the town?' He had of course observed Duhamel's bitterness, but he took no notice of it until they had gone a considerable way in silence, when he began, 'Generally speaking questions are out of place in our calling, but may I ask whether it would be safe for you to come and drink a cup of coffee with me? There is a French pastry-cook in Marylebone who understands the making of coffee, a rare accomplishment in this island.'

'Oh, quite safe, I thank you. I am accredited to Monsieur de Lille. There are only three men in London - two men now - who know what I am. But I am afraid I must decline. I have a carriage waiting for me beyond that line of builder's waggons, and I must go on to Hartwell.'

'Then I shall have time to pack my chest and catch the slow coach quite easily,' reflected Stephen.

But Duhamel went on in an altered voice, 'Our calling... Oh Maturin, do you not grow sick of the perpetual lies and duplicity, the perpetual bad faith? Not only directed against the enemy but against other organizations and within the same group.' Duhamel's face was greyer now and it twitched with the strength of his emotion. 'The struggle for power and political advantage and the falsity and betrayal right and left - shifting alliances - no faith or loyalty. There is a plan for sacrificing me, I know. My correspondent here in London, the man I was shooting with, was sacrificed: though that was only for money, whereas mine is to prove my chief's loyalty to the Emperor. You were going to be sacrificed in Brittany; and I could not have saved you, since it was Lucan's people who arranged Madame de La Feuillade's affair. But as you did not go I suppose you know all about that.' With one accord they turned about and walked back over the grass. 'I am sick of it all,' said Duhamel. 'That is one of the reasons I am so glad to be finished with this particular mission so cleanly- something straight and clean at last.' He threw out his hands in a gesture of disgust and cried 'Listen, Maturin, I want to be shot of it all. I want to go to Canada - to Quebec. If you can arrange it I will give you the equivalent ten times over. Ten times the equivalent. I know something of your affairs and I give you my word that what I can tell you touches your organization and Captain Aubrey very closely.'

Stephen looked at him with pale, considering, objective eyes and after a moment he said 'I will endeavour to arrange it. I will let you know tomorrow. Where can we meet?'

'Oh anywhere. As I told you, there are only two men in London who know me.'

'Can you come to Black's, in St James's Street?'

'Opposite Button's?' asked Duhamel with a strange look - a glare of suspicion that faded almost at once. 'Yes, certainly. Would let us say six o'clock be convenient?'

'Certainly,' said Stephen. 'Until six o'clock tomorrow, then.'

They parted on coming to the road, where Duhamel bore away westwards to regain his carriage and Stephen walked slowly south, keeping his eye lifted for a hackneycoach. He found one at last in a new-building crescent, scarcely visible for the masons' carts and flying dust, and drove to Durrant's hotel.

Here he asked for Captain Dundas and learnt without much surprise that he had gone out.

'Then I shall wait for him,' he said, and settled down for what might be a matter of hours, since notes miscarried and messages were forgotten, and even if they were not, the recipient rarely saw their urgency as clearly as the sender. It was indeed a matter of hours, but they did not drag excessively, because as usual there were many naval officers staying at the hotel and several who wished to show their kindness for Jack Aubrey came and sat with him for a while. The last of them, a fat, affable, spectacled post-captain called Hervey, was saying what a damned thing it was that the service should be deprived of such a fine seaman, with the heavy American frigates doing so well, when he broke off and said 'There is Heneage Dundas: he feels even more strongly than I do.'

'Come and eat your mutton with me, both of you,' said Dundas, coming over to them.

'Alas, I cannot,' said Hervey. 'I am engaged.' He peered at the clock in his poring way and sprang up, crying 'I am late, I am late already.'

'For my part, I should be happy,' said Stephen, which was true: he liked Dundas, he had missed his breakfast with that infernal sea-chest, and in spite of his anxious mind he was extremely hungry.

'You sail for the North American station quite soon, I believe?' he said, when they had reached their apple pie.

'On Monday, wind and weather permitting,' said Dundas. 'Tomorrow I must make my adieux.'

'Will you indulge me by walking into the smoking room?' asked Stephen. But when they came to it he saw that there were too many people by far and he said 'The truth of the matter is that I wish to speak to you privately. May we go upstairs, do you think?'

Dundas led the way, gave him a chair and said 'I thought you had something on your mind.'

'I believe we may do Aubrey an essential service,' said Stephen. 'I have been talking to a man in whom I have great confidence. He wishes to go to Canada. In return for being taken there he will give me information of great value concerning Jack.' Replying to the doubt and dissatisfaction in Dundas's face he went on, 'In these blank bald words it sounds intolerably naive, even simple-minded, but I am bound by the confidential nature of so many aspects - I am unable to relate a whole host of details that would compel conviction. Yet at least I can show you this.' He brought out the Blue Peter from his pocket, unwrapped it and held it out in a beam of sunlight.

'What an astonishing great stone,' cried Dundas. 'Can it be a sapphire?'

'It is Diana's blue diamond,' said Stephen. 'She was in Paris, you remember, when Jack and I were imprisoned there, and her leaving it behind was connected with our escape. Its eventual return was promised however and the man I am speaking of brought it to me this morning, on his way to Hartwell. I tell you this so that you will understand at least one of the reasons that I rely on his word and that I take what he says very seriously. There was nothing to prevent him from keeping the stone, yet he handed it over straight away, without any conditions whatsoever.'

'It is an extraordinary great diamond,' said Dundas. 'I do not believe I have seen a finer outside the Tower. It must be worth a fortune.'

'That is what is so impressive: a man that means to go to the New World and start a new life and that hands over an eminently portable fortune is not one to speak lightly.'

'Do you know the reason for his wanting to go to Canada?'

'I would not ask you to take him if he were a common criminal escaping from the law. No, he is sick of his colleagues' bad faith, their dissensions and their dissimulation, and wishes to make a clean and sudden break.'

'He is a Frenchman, I collect, since he is going to Hartwell.'

'I am not sure. He may come from the Rhine provinces. But at all events he is not a Buonapartist, that I can absolutely guarantee.'

'Do you think a promise to take him on condition that his information proves useful to Jack would answer?'

'I do not.'

'No. I suppose not. Though proper flats we should look if...' Dundas walked up and down, considering for a while, and then said 'Well, I suppose we shall have to take him. I will write Butcher a note to receive him as my guest. Fortunately we have room and to spare - no master until we reach Halifax. Does he speak English?'

'Oh, very well. That is to say, very fluently. But he learnt it from a Scotch nursemaid and then a Scotch tutor, and it is the North British dialect that he speaks; it is neither very offensive nor incomprehensible - indeed, it has a certain wild archaic charm - and to any but the nicest ear it disguises the foreign accent entirely. He is a quiet, inoffensive gentleman, and is likely to keep his bed throughout the passage, being a most indifferent sailor.'

'So much the better. It is quite against the regulations, you know, he being a foreigner.'

'It is quite against the regulations to take young ladies to sea, foreign or home-bred, yet I believe I have known it done.'

'Well,' said Dundas, 'let us go downstairs and find pen and ink.'

Dr Maturin had all the next day to reflect upon what he had done and what he was doing. By all professional standards it was extraordinarily imprudent; and it was exceedingly unwise from a personal point of view, since he was compromising himself as deeply as possible and opening himself to very ugly accusations - his actions could be interpreted as criminal and they might in fact constitute crimes, capital crimes. He was relying solely on his instinct, and his instinct was by no means infallible. Sometimes it was affected by his wishes and before now it had deceived him very painfully. He reassured himself from time to time by looking at the splendid diamond in his pocket, like a talisman, and he spent the afternoon in the Covent Garden hummums, his sparse frame sweating in the hottest room until it could sweat no more.

'Is Duhamel a punctual man?' he asked himself, sitting in the vestibule at Black's, where he could command the entrance and the porter's desk. 'Does he pay strict attention to time?' Answer came there none until six had stopped striking, when Duhamel appeared on the steps, carrying a packet. Stephen stepped forward before Duhamel could ask for him and led him upstairs to the long room overlooking St James's Street. Duhamel looked greyer still, but his face was as impassive as usual and he appeared to be perfectly composed.