Desolation Island. Patrick O’Brian

valerian quite exploded; the great value of a pregnancy in these and indeed in almost all other cases; leeches behind the ears always worth a trial; lenitives considered, and their effect upon the spleen; hop-pillows; cold-sponging, with a pint of water on an empty stomach; low diet, black draughts; and Dr Lettsome mentioned his success with opium in certain not dissimilar cases. ‘The poppy,’ he said, ‘can make a rose of a termagant.’ He was pleased with his expression: in a louder, rounder voice he said, ‘Of a termagant, the poppy can make a rose.’ But Sir James’s face clouded over, and he replied, ‘Your poppy is very well, in its proper place; but when I consider its abuse, the danger of habituation, the risk of the patient’s becoming a mere slave, I am sometimes inclined to think that its proper place is the garden-plot. I know a very able man who did so abuse it, in the form of the tincture of laudanum, that he accustomed himself to a dose of no less than eighteen thousand drops a day – a decanter half the size of this. He broke himself of the habit; but in a recent crisis of his affairs he had recourse to his balm once more, and although he was never as who should say opium-drunk, I am credibly informed that he was not sober either, not for a fortnight on end, and that – Oh, Dr Maturin, how do you do?’ he cried as the door opened. ‘You know our colleague Lettsome, I believe?’

      ‘Your servant, gentlemen,’ said Stephen. ‘I trust you have not been waiting on me?’

      Not at all, they said; their patient was not yet ready for them; might they tempt Dr Maturin to a glass of this capital Madeira? They might, said Dr Maturin, and as he drank he observed that it was shocking how corpses had risen: he had been cheapening one that very morning, and the villains had had the face to ask him four guineas – the London price for a provincial cadaver! He had represented to them that their greed must stifle science, and with it their own trade, but in vain: four guineas he had had to pay. In fact he was quite pleased with it: one of the few female corpses he had seen with that curious quasi-calcification of the palmar aponeuroses – fresh, too – but since it was only the hands that interested him at the moment, would either of his colleagues choose to go snacks?

      ‘I am always happy to have a good fresh liver for my young men,’ said Sir James. ‘We will stuff it into the boot.’ With this he rose, for the door had opened, and Mrs Williams came in, together with a strong smell of singed hair.

      The consultation ran its weary course, and Stephen, sitting a little apart, felt that the grave attentive physicians were earning their fee, however exorbitant it might prove. They both had a natural gift for the histrionic side of medicine, which he did not possess to any degree: he also wondered at the skill with which they managed the lady’s flow. He wondered, too, that Mrs Williams should tell such lies, he being in the room: ‘she was a homeless widow, and since her son-in-law’s degradation she had been unwilling to appear in public.’ She was not homeless. The mortgage on Mapes, her large and spreading house, had been paid off with the spoils of Mauritius; but she preferred letting it. Her son-in-law, when in command of a squadron in the Indian Ocean, had held the temporary post of commodore, and as soon as the campaign was over, as soon as the squadron was dispersed, he had in the natural course of events reverted to the rank of captain: there was no degradation. This had been explained to Mrs Williams time and again; she had certainly understood the simple facts; and it was no doubt a measure of the strong, stupid, domineering woman’s craving for pity, if not approval, that she could now bring it all out again in his presence, knowing that he knew the falsity of her words.

      Yet in time even Mrs Williams’s voice grew hoarse and Sir James’s manner more authoritative; the imminence of dinner became unmistakable; Sophie popped in and out; and at last the consultation came to an end.

      Stephen went out to fetch Jack from the stables, and they met half way, among the steaming heaps of lime. ‘Stephen! How very glad I am to see you,’ cried Jack, clapping both hands on Stephen’s shoulders and looking down into his face with great affection. ‘How do you do?’

      ‘We have brought it off,’ said Stephen. ‘Sir James is absolute: Scarborough, or we cannot answer for the consequences; and the patient is to travel under the care of an attendant belonging to Dr Lettsome.’

      ‘Well, I am happy the old lady is to be looked after so well,’ said Jack, chuckling. ‘Come and look at my latest purchase.’

      ‘She is a fine creature, to be sure,’ said Stephen, as they watched the filly being led up and down. A fine creature, perhaps a shine too fine, even flashy; slightly ewe-hocked; and surely that want of barrel would denote a lack of bottom? An evil-tempered ear and eye. ‘Will I get on her back?’ he asked.

      ‘There will never be time,’ said Jack, looking at his watch. ‘The dinner-bell will go directly. But –’ casting an admiring backward eye as he hurried Stephen away – ‘is she not a magnificent animal? Just made to win the Oaks.’

      ‘I am no great judge of horseflesh,’ said Stephen, ‘yet I do beg, Jack, that you will not lay money on the creature till you have watched her six months and more.’

      ‘Bless you,’ said Jack, ‘I shall be at sea long before that, and so will you, I hope, if your occasions allow it – we must run like hares – I have great news – will tell you the moment the medicoes are away.’ The hares blundered on, gasping. Jack cried, ‘Your dunnage is in your old room, of course,’ and plunged up the stairs to shift his coat, reappearing to wave his guests to the dining-table as the clock struck the first stroke of the hour.

      ‘One of the many things I like about the Navy,’ said Sir James, half way through the first remove, ‘is that it teaches a proper respect for time. With sailors a man always knows when he is going to sit down to table; and his digestive organs are grateful for this punctuality.’

      ‘I could wish a man also knew when he was going to rise from table,’ observed Jack within, some two hours later, when Sir James’s organs were still showing gratitude to the port and walnuts. He was boiling with impatience to tell Stephen of his new command, to engage him, if possible, to sail with him once more on this voyage, to admit him to the secret of becoming enormously rich, and to hear what his friend might have to say about his own affairs – not those which had filled his recent absence, for there Stephen was no more loquacious than the quieter sort of tomb, but those which were connected with Diana Villiers and the letters that had so lately been carried up to his room. Yet aloud he said, ‘Come, Stephen, this will never do. The bottle is at a stand.’ Although Jack’s voice was loud and clear, Stephen did not move until the words were repeated, when he started from his reflections, gazed about, and pushed the decanter on: the two physicians looked at him attentively, their heads on one side. Jack’s more familiar eye could not make out any marked change: Stephen was pale and withdrawn, but not much more so than usual; perhaps a little dreamier; yet even so Jack was heartily glad when the doctors excused themselves from taking tea, called for their footman, were led into the coach-house by Stephen for a grisly interval with a saw, bundled a shrouded object into the back of the chariot (it had carried many another – the footman and the horses were old hands in the resurrection line), reappeared, pocketed their fees, took their leave, and rolled away.

      Sophie was alone in the drawing-room with the tea-urn and the coffee-pot when at last Jack and Stephen joined her. ‘Have you told Stephen about the ship?’ she asked.

      ‘Not yet, sweetheart,’ said Jack, ‘but am on the very point of doing so. Do you remember the Leopard, Stephen?’

      ‘The horrible old Leopard?’

      ‘What a fellow you are, to be sure. First you crab my new filly, the finest prospect for the Oaks I have ever seen – and let me tell you, old Stephen, with all due modesty, that I am the best judge of a horse in the Navy.’

      ‘I make no doubt of it, my dear: I have seen several naval horses, ha, ha. For horses they must be called, since they generally have the best part of four legs, and no other member of the animal kingdom can call them kin.’ Stephen relished his own wit, and for some little time he uttered the creaking sound that was his nearest approach to laughter, and said, ‘The Oaks, forsooth!’

      ‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘and now you say “the horrible old Leopard”. To be sure, she