The Surgeon’s Mate. Patrick O’Brian

I will tell you when I am quite penniless.’

      ‘Well,’ said Stephen, taking up his third paper. ‘Now here is a certificate for you, stating that although you are an enemy alien you may be admitted to Canadian soil and that you may remain upon it while of good behaviour.’

      ‘Oh, I shall behave quite beautifully,’ she said, laughing again. ‘But what nonsense it is, Stephen: I am on Canadian soil already. I have always thought papers and legal formalities great nonsense, but I have never seen such a simple one as this. During His Majesty’s pleasure,’ she read, ‘and his poor dear old Majesty has not the least notion I am here. Oh, what stuff !’

      ‘No, but his servants have. I tell you in all sad sober earnest, Villiers, this is an important document. Without it you would have been taken away, Admiral or no Admiral. It is known that in law you are an American citizen, and as such you would ordinarily be placed under restraint: perhaps sent back again.’

      ‘Who cares for the law and quibbles of that kind? Anyone can tell that I am perfectly English and always have been and always shall be. But tell me, how did you get it?’

      ‘Sure, I went to the proper quarters, to the officer that deals with things of this kind.’

      ‘It was so kind of you to think of it,’ she said: then she cried, ‘Oh, Stephen, I had quite forgot,’ – and he could have sworn the thought passed from his head to hers – ‘were they pleased with the papers you brought from Boston? I remember you told me they were for an army intelligence officer here. How I hope they were useful to him.’

      ‘Alas, it appears that they were more in the political than the military line. They are not without a certain value, I am told, but it seems that I could have chosen much better. I should not make much of an intelligence-agent, I am afraid.’

      ‘No,’ said Diana, laughing. ‘I cannot imagine anyone less suited for it. Not that you are not intelligent, dear Maturin,’ she added with a kind look. ‘In your way you are one of the most intelligent men I know, but you would be far happier among your birds. To think of you as a spy – oh, Lord!’ Amusement turned her a fine rosy pink. He had rarely seen Diana so gay.

      ‘Will you give me the certificate, now?’ he said. ‘I must show it to the priest. He cannot marry us without it. Would Friday suit you, Friday morning, quite early in the day? You would not wish much ceremony, as I suppose; but Jack can give you away, and then you will be a British subject once more.’

      All the gaiety was gone from her face, completely gone, leaving it pale: an ill-looking, somewhat earthy pallor. She started up, walked to and fro, and then stood by the long window looking out into the garden, twisting the paper as she stood.

      ‘But now I have the certificate, what is the hurry?’ she said. ‘What does it matter, all these formalities? Do not think I don’t want to marry you … it is only that … Stephen, make me one of your little paper cigars, will you?’

      He took out a cigar, cut it in two, and made two small rolls in a fine leaf from his pocket-book, one for her and one for himself. He held up an ember for her to light it, but she said, ‘No. I cannot smoke here. Lady Harriet might come in. I do not want her to think – to know – that she is harbouring a dissolute dram-drinking tobacco-smoking creature. Light yours and come into the garden: I will smoke it there. You know, Stephen,’ she said, opening the french window, ‘ever since you told me about bourbon and complexion, I have not drunk a drop of anything but wine, and precious little of that; but by God I could do with a drink now.’

      In the secluded shrubbery they paced side by side, and a thin cloud of smoke followed them. She said, ‘With all this hurry – the business of the ball – gossiping with Lady Harriet – worrying about what to wear – I was quite out of myself. I forgot where I was. Maturin, do not be disappointed when I say I should like to wait.’ A pause. ‘You are the only man I have known who never asks questions, who is never impertinent even when he has the right to be.’ She was looking at the ground, her head drooping; and although he had known her many years, in many states of temper and mind, he had never seen her in such distress or confusion. She was standing with the sun full on her and his penetrating, objective eye examined her downcast face; but before he had time to say ‘Not at all’ or ‘As you please, entirely’ a footman came stumping into sight at the end of the gravel walk and called out in a strong voice, ‘The Honourable Mrs Wodehouse and Miss Smith to see you, ma’am.’

      Diana threw Stephen a quick, apologetic glance and ran into the house. She might be in a strange hurry of spirits, but she moved with the perfect, unconscious grace that had always touched him, and he felt a wave of tenderness, allied to his former passionate love; perhaps its ghost.

      The footman was still standing there, his wooden leg firmly planted in the gravel, waiting for Stephen: that is to say, a person dressed as a footman in the Admiral’s hideous orange and purple livery was waiting there; but his independent attitude, his long pigtail, his pleasant battered old face made his true nature and origin obvious at a cable’s length.

      ‘I hope I see you well, sir?’ he said, touching a crooked forefinger to his eyebrow.

      ‘Very well, I thank you,’ said Stephen, looking at him attentively. The last time he had seen that face it had been bloodless, glistening with sweat, tight-clenched not to cry out beneath his knife, as the Surprise limped westwards to Fort William, cruelly mauled by a French seventy-four. ‘But you were not an amputation,’ he said.

      ‘No, sir: Bullock, forecastle-man, starboard watch, in the old Surprise.’

      ‘Of course,’ said Stephen, shaking him by the hand. ‘What I mean is, I saved that leg. I did not cut it off.’

      ‘Nor you did, sir,’ said Bullock, ‘but when I was in Benbow off the Cays, I copped it something cruel with a bar-shot; and our surgeon not being Dr Maturin, off it came, without so much as by your leave.’

      ‘I am sure it was necessary,’ said Stephen.

      The remark, the support of his colleague, at least was necessary: but it seemed to carry no conviction at all, perhaps because the surgeon of the Benbow was nearly always drunk, and when sober, notoriously unskilful. The footman looked affectionately at Dr Maturin and said, ‘And I hope Captain Aubrey is well, sir? I heard he come ashore off of Shannon as pleased as the Pope and twice as tall.’

      ‘Prime, Bullock, prime. I shall be seeing him at the hospital directly.’

      ‘My duty and very best respects, sir, if you please. John Bullock, forecastle-man, in the old Surprise.’

      As prisoners of war in Boston, Aubrey and Maturin had been very kindly treated by their captors; they were penniless, they had no cold-weather clothes, and the officers of the USN Constitution had seen to all their needs. Neither intended to be behindhand in an action of this sort, and as he expected, Stephen found Jack with a wounded American lieutenant.

      ‘Do you remember a man called Bullock, in the Surprise?’ he said, as they walked away.

      ‘Yes, I do,’ said Jack. ‘Forecastle-man, and a very good hand.’

      ‘He sends his old captain his best respects.’

      ‘Why, that’s kind,’ said Jack. ‘John Bullock: he laid a gun as true as you could wish – dead on the mark, though rather slow. He was captain of the starboard bow-chaser. But I tell you what, Stephen: old captain is dead on the mark too. What with funerals and the blue devils and natural decrepitude, I feel like Methusalem’s grandad.’

      ‘You eat too much, brother, you drink too much, and you allow yourself to brood. A brisk ten-mile walk in the damp but interesting forests of the New World, outpacing the blue devils, will set you up – will renew your animal spirits. Ponce de Leon was of the opinion that the Fountain of Youth was to be found in these parts. And you are to consider, that a packet may arrive from England at any minute.’

      ‘I dare say you are right about the Fountain of Youth, Stephen, but you are out as far as the packet