The Surgeon’s Mate. Patrick O’Brian

often played together; and now that he was in it, in it for the first time as a dancer, the familiar music took on a new dimension; he was part of the music, right in its heart as one of the formally moving figures whose pattern it created – he lived in a new world, entirely in the present. ‘I love that girl with the green on her back,’ she said again over the deep throb of the ’cello, ‘she is having such fun. Oh Stephen, how I wish this night would last for ever.’

      In fact it lasted only a very few hours more, only just long enough for Captain Aubrey to fall deeply asleep in Miss Smith’s predictable bed. The east was lightening when she shook him awake, saying in a low urgent tone, ‘You must go. The servants are moving about already. Quick – here is your shirt.’

      His head was hardly clear of it before he observed to his consternation that she was in tears. She clung to him, saying, ‘We must never, never do it again.’ Then calming herself she said, ‘Here are your breeches.’

      His arm was still awkward and he had some difficulty with his neckcloth. She tied it for him, laughing in a way that surprised him, laughing unsteadily and making not altogether coherent remarks about Lady Hamilton doing the same for Nelson: and again she repeated ‘Never mind manoeuvres: always go straight at ’em, ha, ha, ha!’ His coat was on; his hair was tied up; she whispered, ‘Go by the garden gate: it is only bolted. I will leave it open tonight.’

      Stephen saw him creep into the room they shared, and in spite of the creaking of the boards, almost impossible to ignore, he would have let him reach his bed unnoticed if, in an excess of caution, Jack had not flung down the primitive basin in which they had to wash. It rang like a bell, trundling in a wide spiral until it came to rest against the small table at Stephen’s side. This could not credibly be overlooked, and he sat up.

      ‘I am truly sorry to have woke you,’ said Jack, smiling at him with a fine glowing face. ‘I went for a walk.’

      ‘You look as though you had found the Fountain of Youth, brother. But it is to be hoped that you took a cloak, or at least a flannel waistcoat: with your wound, and at your time of life, the morning dews can have a very dismal effect. The natural humours of the body, Jack, are not lightly to be disturbed. Show me your arm. Exactly so. Tumor, rubor, dolor: there has been inconsiderate exercise, I find; and you are to put it up in a sling again. Do not you feel it – do not you feel a stiffness in the joint?’

      ‘It is a little painful,’ said Jack. ‘But apart from that, I am astonishingly well. I feel as young as I did when I was first made commander, for all your harping on age and flannel waistcoats, Stephen: even younger. A morning walk sets you up amazingly; that is your Fountain of Youth, for sure. I dare say I shall take another tonight.’

      ‘Did you see many people abroad?’

      ‘A surprising number, walking about in all directions – several officers I knew.’

      ‘What you tell me confirms my supposition: Halifax is an early-rising town. I formed this opinion first from the noise in the street and then from the coming of a little puny boy – a marked case of scoliosis, poor child – with this note for you from Mr Gittings.’

      ‘Who is Mr Gittings?’

      ‘He is the person in charge of the post.’

      Jack ripped open the note, carried it to the window, and read, ‘Most regrettable mistake… Captain A’s mail set specially aside… subordinates misinformed… packets await his pleasure. God bless my soul: God strike me down: I had never … Stephen, I shall step round at once.’

      ‘Before you leave,’ said Stephen, ‘I will sling your arm anew. And may I suggest that before I do so, you should wash? In the broad daylight people might think you had been in a battle of some kind.’

      Jack looked at the glass. In the dimness of Miss Smith’s bedroom neither had seen the ludicrous smear of rouge on his face: painfully ludicrous, now that he looked so grave. He washed vigorously, stood silent with what patience he could command while Stephen slung his arm, and ran out of the inn.

      It seemed hardly a moment before he was back pounding up the stairs with two canvas-wrapped packets and a number of later covers. ‘Forgive me, Stephen,’ he said, ‘nearly all of these are from Sophie, and I cannot read them in a public room.’

      He was deep in the pile, busily sorting and arranging so as to read them in order, by the time Stephen had dressed to go to the hospital: his look of startled guilt had changed to one of eager, happy anticipation. By the time Stephen returned, the heap had been reduced to an exact sequence and read over twice; the letters lay under a water-carafe, with several sheets of accounts beside them; and Jack’s face showed an odd mixture of deep contentment and worry.

      ‘Sophie sends you her dear love in all of these,’ he said. ‘And all is well at home, apart from that damned fellow Kimber. George is breeched, and the girls are learning deportment and French. Lord, Stephen, to think of those turnip-headed little creatures learning French!’

      ‘Had she received any of your letters from Boston?’

      ‘Yes: two. Admiral Drury’s duplicate dispatches had already told her Leopard was safe, and that good fellow Chads travelled down to Hampshire as soon as the court-martial was over to tell her how Java had picked us up and about Java and Constitution. He was very tactful about my wound: said it was nothing that would put me out of action for long, but it was thought better I should go to America with you and be exchanged from there rather than risk the hot southern passage in a crowded cartel. I am very much obliged to him: she believed it implicitly, and did not worry.’

      ‘I am sure she did. I am sure she believed it.’

      ‘Would the gentlemen like their breakfast now?’ asked a chambermaid, bawling through the door.

      ‘If you please, my dear,’ said Stephen. ‘And listen, child, beg them to make the coffee twice as strong, will you now?’

      ‘I am sure she did,’ he said, as he sipped his thin brew. ‘There is a Latin tag you are no doubt familiar with, to the effect that men are usually seen to believe what they wish to believe. I was reflecting upon that only the other day,’ he went on, staring out of the window at Diana Villiers and Lady Harriet, who were walking along the far pavement, followed by a footman carrying parcels. ‘I was reflecting upon that, and upon its corollary, to wit, that often men do not see what they do not wish to see. In all good faith they do not perceive it. I was reflecting because I had a most striking instance of it in myself. For weeks I had the evidence of a given physical condition in front of my eyes, and yet I did not see it. The physician in me must at least have noticed some of the symptoms; and however fleeting and inconclusive each severally may have been he must have seen that the sum, the convergence, was at least significant: but no, the man would have none of it, and was genuinely amazed when the state of which I speak was forced upon his attention. Gnosce teipsum is very well, but how to come to it? We are fallible creatures, Jack, and adepts at self-deception.’

      ‘So my old nurse used to tell me,’ said Jack: Stephen could be prosy at times, and Jack’s attention had wandered to the accounts next to Sophie’s letters.

      ‘You mentioned that damned fellow Kimber,’ said Stephen.

      ‘Yes. He is still at his capers – keeps pressing her for money – swears that a few more thousand will save our stake and turn a dead loss into a handsome profit – talks of thousands now, as though they were the natural unit – I cannot make head or tail of the accounts he has shown her, though I am pretty good at figures – wants her to sell Delderwood – I do not think that goddam paper I signed just before we came away can have been a power of attorney, you know, or he could do without her consent.’

      ‘What were the terms of your marriage-settlement?’

      ‘I have no idea. I just agreed to whatever Sophie’s mother – or rather her man of business – proposed, and signed my name where I was told: J. Booby, Captain, RN.’

      Stephen knew Mrs Williams of old; he drew some comfort from