21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (7 page)

“Can I not?”

“
Oh of course you can, of course you can. I am sure the Glens of Avoca are even finer. I do beg your pardon. But, do you see, it was my childhood.”

“
Have you noticed that small vessel right in with the land, almost beneath us, under the clif f? Her sails are all in a line.”

Jack leapt to his feet. “By God, she’
s Ringle,”
he cried. “
S
he must have stood inshore. . .”
The voice and the explanation died on the downward slope.

“
I should never have believed that a man so tall and stout could have moved so fast,”
murmured Stephen, fixing the schooner in his glass. He liked to believe that he could make out Brigid and Christine with Edward Heatherleigh clinging to a spar behind them, but it was clearly time to descend.

The perilous slope, the milder slope, the mule-track, the paved road, and at last the quays with Jack still far, far ahead, though now moving more like an admiral.

Ringle
was a beautifully-proportioned vessel and it was only when there was a tight knot of people on her fo’c’
sle that one saw how small she was in fact. Kindly hands heaved on the mooring ropes to let Stephen step aboard from the quay, and clear over the genera l din he heard the Aubrey twins’
shrill cry , raised for the seventh time, “
Why are you not wearing your admiral's uniform?”
while at the same time his own Brigid slipped th rough the throng and whispered “Dearest Papa”
as he bent to kiss her.
Christine was just behind , and looking up from the child’
s shining, happy, sun browned face he said, “
Dear Christine, she does you infinite credit. Edward, my dear sir, how do you do? How happy I am to see you.”

The visitors’
cabins had long since been prep ared, and now the admiral’
s barge carried them over: after their extraordinarily rapid but somewhat cramped voyage they were amazed by th e scale of a ship of the line. ‘It is almost as good as Grignon’s hotel,”
said Charlotte, which earned her a sour look from Killick.
“
And have you noticed that the sails are square?”
asked her si ster, to which Brigid replied, “
Don't you know the odds between a ship and a schooner?”
with such firmness and such effect that Stephen saw, with infinite satisfaction, that a decent balance had been established.
Then again, Brigid knew quantities of old Surprises, some of whom had taught her the ropes: these she found out and asked them how they did, calling them by name, which put her head and shoulders above any passenger but Mrs Aubrey. In any case the twins never entered into competition: as might have been predicted, they had been dreadfully seasick, confined to their bunks, horrible to see and worse to hear from the very beginning until a few days ago, so that they had acquired no sea-legs, no fundamental knowledge; and even now they were incapable of distinguishing a bowline from a rolling-hitch.

Yet in a surprisingly short time as it is measured by days the new inhabitants of the Suffolk, even the more stupid of the Aubrey girls, took bells for granted, the ritual swabbing of decks, set meals (less Spartan now that they lay in port) and the many and very fine gradations that separated the rear-admiral from the boy, third-class.
Stephen observed, with a mute but intense satisfaction, that here his daughter had not the least air of being a stranger in the house, a friend’
s child accepted for that friend’
s sake: here, with so many friends and accompanied by Padeen, an old Surprise of remarkable standing and authority, she was very much at home. Yet as far as he could see she did not flaunt her sea-going knowledge, but as soon as the twins were willing to be peaceable she was both kind and companion-like.

Very soon they had explored almost every part of the ship from the safer tops (propelled by Padeen and other seamen) to the echoing vaults of the darkened hold, where facetious midshipmen and first class volunteers would terrify them with sepulchral moans and waving sheets.

“Dearest Stephen,”
said Sophie, passing him a cup of tea in the cabin, “
I cannot tell you how glad I am that our daughters are friends again: there was a time when I almost despaired — when I should have whipped them if I had not thought it would do more harm than good. It only made me dogged when I was young.”

“
I cannot ima gine you being whipped, Sophie,”
said Christine.

“
But I was, and quite often too. My mother would make us stand with our faces to the wall and whip the back of our legs with a thin sheaf of willow-wands: I do not think it ever improved my French verbs or arithmetic or even my manners.”

“
I knew so me Dominican nuns who did that,” said Stephen. “
They whipped my Saavedra cousins until they bled: I had thought it was only Catholic. Jack hardly ever flogs: discourages it, indeed . How do you find him, my dear?”

“Oh, very well, I thank you,” said Sophie, blushing. “
I must admit he is rather thinner than I could wish: but he does love having his flag, and I am so very, very happy for him. It was Prince William who sent us the news, with his best compliments, whic h I thought wonderfully polite.”

The three little girls came in, since if there was tea there might also, in the nature of things, be cake, or at least muffin. On seeing Stephen they stopped, not looking very wise, and made a concerted bob: then Br igid ran over to him and said, “
Oh sir, the Admiral says a Portuguee came in with the flood and he hopes there may be some mail. A boat pulled acr oss to the flag not long since.”

“
I shall go upstairs - I shall go on deck, and ask whether it would be proper to enqu ire. Ladies, forgive me, I beg.”

No. It would be most improper. Jack was surprised that a man who had seen so much sea-time could suppose the thing possible or even decent - it was not exactly mutinous but it would deserve and certainly receive an exceptionally harsh reproach.
But in any case Stephen was talking great nonsense. The Portuguese had been aboard Lord Leyton this hour and more and there had been no sign of mail — nothing handed up the side, no passing out of bags, no hurrying to and fro. No. The boat had done nothing more than deliver a gentleman, the gentleman in regimentals who was now walking up and down the quarterdeck with the Admiral, arm in arm. “
I have been staring at him with my glass, in this ill -bred fashion, for some little time,” said Jack. “
For although I think I know the face and carriage I cannot put a name to either.
Should you like to take a look?”

“
Sure, it is very ill-bred: but I might, to make you easy .
”
Stephen took the telescope, focused it, and almost at once, as the two men on the far ship turned, he said coldly, “
It is Henry Miller. He was at Trinity in my time and he killed Edward Taaffe in the Fifteen Ac res when I was in my last year.”

“
Miller? Yes, of course, my neighbour over by Caxley. He must be related to the Admiral — Miller is Lord Leyton's family name, and that person over there often spoke of a peerage going to some fairly close connexion. Cousin, of course: they would not be walk ing arm in arm, otherwise.”
After a pause Jack went on, “
What do you mean by your Fifteen Acres?”

“
It is a space in the Phoenix Park - you know the great park in Dublin , I am sure?”
Jack nodded.
“
And that is where people go, particularly the young men of Trinity, to settle matters of honour.”

“
Just so: and he killed a gunner officer in Malta, too. He is said to be a very good shot; and he has capital pistols. I have heard him called Hair-Trigger Miller; and to be sure I h ave seen him bring down a great many pheasants.”

“
Would you say he was a quarrelsome man, at all?”

“
I scarcely know him. We are necessarily acquainted, but he is not the sort of man whose acquaintance I should value –
in short, I do not like him. It is not the fighting.
As you know, duels are much more usual in the army than with us, or even the Marines. And anyhow you and I have both been out from time to time ..
. cannot top it the Holy Joe.”
Jack stared o ut over the water and went on. “
For all I know he may be well enough liked in his regiment: but his reputation in the neighbourhood is so indifferent that I was astonished to learn that he had called on Edward and Christine when they settled in Medenham, and then at Woolcombe when Christine was staying there, with Edward so far in the north. I have no room to blackguard a man for incontinence, being no model myself: but there are limits . . . You know very well, Stephen, how much influence a man with a large household and a considerable estate can bring to bear on his dependents –
his dependents’
daughters –
and there were some very ugly tales of girls in child being turned away. I know very little: yet his conduct does seem to matc h with the general reprobation.”

“He is not married, I take it?”

“
No, nor ever has been. Being almost next in succession to the Leyton title, he is said to be saving himself up for some very brilliant match.”

“Can you square a man’
s valuing a peerage very highly with his going out and risking his life so often?”

“
Yes, if he is an unusually resentful unloved creature and at the same time an uncommon good shot.”

“
Sir, if you pleas e,”
said the officer of the watch, stepping aft and taking off his hat, “Flag is breaking out a signal.”
Speaking in the high, staccato, expressionless voice usual on such occasions, the duty-midshipman piped up , “
Flag to Suffolk: Admiral invites Rear-Admiral and Doctor M-A-T-U-R-I-N to dinner at a quarter past three: repeat a quarter past three o'clock.
”

“
Rear-Admiral to flag: very happy, ”
said Jack in italics. Then he hurried aft to Stephen’
s point of discreet withdrawal. “
Stephen, I have engaged you to dine with the Admiral tomor row: I hope you do not mind it?”

“
I do not mind it, my dear: and it would make not odds if I did. We are all worms under the harrow, in the service: even you, Jack, scintillating in gold lace, are but one of us.
I say come, and he cometh: for I am a centurion.
I have met few admirals: some high, mighty and almost certainly constipated; others small, jolly, good company: reading men , even. Besides, I long for men’
s company: the prattle of the little girls — much though I love them — drives me to an earlier and earlier breakfast, to a later and even later dinner, so that presently the two wil l meet, as they did in Avicenna’
s tale. They come to me with a pelagic crab, a starfish, a piece of common wrack, and standing b y my side they cry ‘
Oh sir, pray tell us what it is,’
so that I am tempted to utter obscene blasphemy. Oh how I long for dear Jacob’s return!”

“I
believe our dep arture depends largely on that,”
said Jack gravely; and then after a pause, “
I tell you what, S
tephen,” he cried, “
it is long since we had a real great-gun exercise. The last powder-hoy, for a trifle of whiskey –
you know the Irish drink, Stephen, I am sure?”

“I have never heard of it,”
said Stephen.

“
— gave us a little surplus, so that the gunner is actually at a loss to stow it: nothing could be happier. And if that does not deafen, astound and silence the little girls there is the Devil in it . I shall give orders directly.
The whole shooting-match !
"
Jack did not often stumble on a witticism, and this one gave him particular delight: he repeated it twice.

The whole shooting-match it was, indeed:
Suffolk might not have been called a very taut ship, nor more than ordinarily crack, but she could never have been likened to the Margate hoy; and in any case she now carried many Surprises, long used to their captain’
s ways and his rigid insistence upon very high standards indeed. The breeze being both steady and favourable Jack laid on his favourite, most profitable form of exercise, one calculated to promote zeal, speed and above all accuracy, to knit a gun-crew into an immensely cooperative whole –
never a word passing, never a word called for –
and to promote the most valuable sort of competition. The most experienced gun-captains and the older, wiser midshipmen were at the three forward guns; and bitter shame would fall upon any following gun that could not keep up with them in speed or accuracy.

The first three guns had been ordered to fire high, to leave something for the rest of the broadside; and Jack, as a particular treat, silencer or gob-stopper for the little girls, had with Mr Meares the gunner contrived a flimsy but coherent structure that under very light and worn-out canvas would drift until it was abreast of the man-of -war, which would then pound it with the most rapid broadside compatible with the