The Fortune of War (26 page)

The five minutes passed, another five, another pot of coffee, and eventually Choate came in and put them out. Jack returned to his telescope, Evans to the dismantled Constitution, and Lawrence to the Chesapeake.

The morning wore on, and part of the afternoon, a brilliant, cheerful day, and at last Stephen came in, still dull and heavy, frowzy from his sleep. 'You look much better, Jack,' he said.

'Yes, I feel it, too. Shannon looked into the port this morning, found the birds flown, all, except Chesapeake and -,

'Did you hear that?' said Stephen, walking to the window.

'The glum-sounding bird?'

'The mourning-dove - there she flies. I dreamt of her. Jack, forgive me. I must go. Diana has invited me to dinner, with Johnson and Louisa Wogan.'

'I trust - I trust she is well?' said Jack.

'Blooming, I thank you: she asked after you most particularly,' said Stephen. There was a pause, but he said no more; and having waited until it was certain that no more would be said, Jack asked, 'Would you like my razor? I stropped it this morning until it would split a hair in four.'

'Oh no,' said Stephen, running his hand over his meagre bristly face. 'This will do very well. I shaved yesterday, or the day before.'

'But you have forgot your shirt. There is blood on it - there is blood on the collar and the cuffs.'

'Never mind. I will pull up my coat. The coat is perfectly respectable; I took it off for the operation. A very pretty operation, too.'

'Stephen,' said Jack earnestly, 'be a good fellow for once, will you now, and humour me? I should be really unhappy if one of my officers dined in an enemy town, looking anything but trim. It could be taken that he was beat, and had no pride in the service.'

'Very well,' said Stephen, and took up the razor.

Trim, shaved and brushed, he hurried through the town: the sharp air cleared his foggy mind, and by the time he reached the hotel his wits were pretty well at his disposition. He was early, which was a relief to him, for a Presbyterian clock, differing as much in time as in doctrine from the many other clocks of Boston, had given him an unpleasant shock: indeed, he was so early that there was no one to receive him. They were still dressing, said the monumental slave, as she showed him into an empty drawing-room.

Here he stood for a while, looking at Johnson's pictures: the bald eagle, the Carolina chickadee, his old friend the black-necked stilt. Then he moved out on to the long balcony, to see whether it might command another public clock - neither he nor Jack possessed a watch. There was one, a great way down the street, but it was obscured by a group of workmen at the far end of the balcony, hauling up lime and sand for some repair, and having craned for some time he gave it up - what did the time matter, after all? From some way along in the other direction, where a curtain streamed from an open window, he heard Diana's voice raised in that familiar tone of reproach he knew so well she was passing Johnson under the harrow In a more gentlemanly mood Stephen would have moved away at once, but he was not feeling gentlemanly and 'after a moment he heard Johnson cry, 'My God, Diana, sometimes you are as loud as a hog in a gate.' The voice was strong and exasperated, and it was followed by the slamming of a door.

Stephen stepped silently back into the drawing-room and he was studying the turkey-buzzard when Johnson came in, cordial, welcoming, apparently unruffled. 'You are a tolerably good dissimulator, I find,' said Stephen to himself, and aloud, 'Surely this is a very able man. He gives us not the bird, for no bird ever had this brilliant clarity in every member, but the Platonic idea of the bird, the visible archetype of the turkey-buzzard.'

'Exactly so,' said Johnson, and they talked of the turkey-buzzard and of the bald eagle whose nest Johnson hoped to see on Sunday - it was on a friend's land in the state of Maine - until Mrs Wogan and Michael Herapath arrived: at the same moment Diana Villiers came in through another door, and Stephen observed that although Wogan was dressed with particular care, Diana won hands down. She was wearing the lightest, purest blue, straight from Paris, and it made Wogan's Boston gown look painstaking and provincial: furthermore, she had such a rivière of blue-white diamonds around her neck as Stephen had rarely seen - a huge stone in the middle.

Even before they sat down to dinner it was clear to him that there was ill-will between Villiers and Wogan on the one hand and Villiers and Johnson on the other; and when they were at their soup, an admirable bisque de homard, it became equally clear that there was an attachment between Johnson and Louisa. They did their best to conceal it, but at times they were a little too formal and at others a little too free, the false note continually obtruding. Stephen was well placed to observe them, since the table at which they dined was rectangular and he occupied the middle of one long side alone, with Herapath and Louisa opposite him, Diana and Johnson at either end, and Wogan on Johnson's right. From Johnson's slightly constrained posture, Stephen was pretty sure that he was pressing Wogan's leg, and from Wogan's jolly, lively face it appeared that she did not dislike it.

Stephen was often rather silent and remote at meals; Diana knew this of old, and she spent most of her efforts during the soup and the course that followed on being agreeable to Michael Herapath. Stephen knew that she was barely acquainted with Herapath and he was surprised by the freedom of her conversation, its rallying, bantering tone, and by her telling an anecdote that was at the least ambiguous, a story either witless or indecent. Herapath too was surprised, but he was a well-bred creature and he concealed it, responding in much the same manner, as far as his habits and abilities would allow. This was not very far in the early stages of the meal, but she repeatedly filled his wine-glass and by the turbot he launched into a tale of his own, the only one of the kind he could remember. Yet half way through it seemed to occur to him that the end bordered too nearly upon the scabrous, and with an anxious glance at Stephen, he tailed away into a very foolish though innocuous conclusion. Discouraged, he said no more; and with both her neighbours nearly mute Diana was obliged to take their entertainment upon herself. Her poise did not desert her for a moment; she filled their glasses yet again - Stephen noticed that she took no unfair advantage, but drank glass for glass with her guests -and gave them a detailed account of a journey to New Orleans. It was not particularly interesting, nor amusing, but at least there was a tolerably convincing appearance of conviviality at her end of the table - no awkward silences. Clearly she had had much practice in holding a party together throughout a long dinner: yet from the nature of her conversation it appeared to Stephen that these parties must have consisted of businessmen and politicians: and rather commonplace businessmen and politicians at that. Where was her quick, mordant, wholly spontaneous wit, her delicate turning of a wicked phrase, perfectly attuned to her company? Could she be reduced to anecdotes and set pieces, when neither he nor Herapath was a politician? She had also acquired a slight American accent, dead against her style. But, on the other hand, had she ever in fact possessed the particular excellencies whose absence he now so deplored, or had they existed only in his infatuated mind? No: she had possessed them. His memory was filled with objective proofs of that, and even if it had not been, her physical appearance was convincing evidence. To some degree every person's face was the creation of the mind behind it, he observed, thinking sadly of his own, and Diana's face and form and movement still reflected much of the fine dashing elegant spirit he had known.

It occurred to him that she had spent these last few years entirely among men, seeing no women apart from a few like Louisa Wogan; she spoke rather as men, and somewhat raffish, moneyed, loose-living men, speak when they are alone together. 'She has forgotten the distinction between what can and what cannot be said,' he reflected. 'A few more years of this company, and she would not scruple to fart.' A delicate distraction, that between true spirit on the one hand and boldness and confidence on the other: he was pursuing this line of thought when a fresh decanter appeared and Diana, visibly irritated by an indiscretion on the part of Johnson and Louisa, cried, 'God's my life, this wine is corked. Really, Johnson, you might give your guests something they can drink.'

Extreme concern on the black butler's face: a glass hurried down to the other end of the table. Silence, and then the verdict, delivered with studied mildness: 'Surely not, my dear: it seems quite sound to me. Take a glass to Dr Maturin. What do you say to it, sir?'

'I am no great judge of wine,' said Stephen. 'But I have heard that very occasionally the mouthful just round the cork may have an ill taste, while the rest of the bottle is excellent. Perhaps that is the case here.'

It was a poor shift, but enough for minds willing to avoid an éclat: the decanter was replaced and the conversation became more general. Herapath struck in with some considerations on the inevitable delays of the press: presently they were talking about the publication of his book, and it was pleasant to see Louisa Wogan's eagerness as they discussed the character in which it was to be printed, and the size and quality of the paper; she certainly had an affection for Herapath, but perhaps it was more the affection of a sister rather than of a mistress, a somewhat pharaonic sister.

Stephen too aroused himself to a sense of his social duty, and with the roast he told Diana and Herapath about the voyage in the cutter after La Flèche had burnt - their consuming hatred for a ship that passed without seeing them - their insatiable appetite for biscuit when they were taken aboard the ill-fated Java at last. 'Between breakfast and dinner,' he said, 'I saw Captain Aubrey eat three and a half pounds, taking a draught of water at eight-ounce intervals; and I kept pace with him, crying out at their perfect suavity, pitying Lucullus for not having known ship's biscuit before the high-weevil stage: for Java was only four weeks out.'

Diana asked him about Jack's present state of health, and when he had answered she said, in a momentary pause, 'Do please remember to give him my love.'

To his surprise Stephen saw Johnson stiffen, sit straight, presumably detaching himself from Wogan, and ask, 'Who is this gentleman to whom you are sending your love, my dear?' in a voice that endeavoured, without much success, to hide its strong displeasure.

'Captain Aubrey,' said Diana, raising her head with that fierce, beautiful gesture that Stephen remembered so well. 'A very distinguished officer in His Majesty's service, sir.' But then, breaking the tension, she added meekly, 'He is my cousin by marriage. He married Sophie Williams.'

'Oh, Captain Aubrey,' said Johnson. 'Yes. The gentleman I am to see this afternoon.'

The meal drew to an end: Diana and Louisa Wogan retired. 'I wonder how they will like each other's company,' thought Stephen as he held the door for them to pass. The men sat for a while, talking of Boston's subscription for the Muscovites who had suffered from the burning of their city, and of the attitude of the King of Prussia. 'It is shocking how little our public men know about conditions in Europe,' observed Johnson, and before they went into the drawing-room he said privately, 'Dr Maturin, if you are not engaged this evening I should very much like to have a word with you. This afternoon I must see Captain Aubrey - an official matter to do with his exchange - and some Frenchmen; but I do not suppose it will take very long. Could you perhaps sit drinking tea with Mrs Villiers until I return?'

'I should be very happy,' said Stephen.

He and Herapath walked into the drawing-room, where Diana and Louisa were sitting at some distance from one another; silently smoking long thin cigars. Herapath was a little unsteady on his legs, a little elevated in his spirits, and he thought fit to recite his version of a T'ang poem dealing with the emotions of a Chinese princess married for political reasons to a barbarian, the leader of a horde that lived brutishly in Outer Mongolia; and in his enthusiasm he had a tendency to stumble over the words. The women listened to him, Louisa with amused and kindly tolerance, Diana with a certain shade of contempt. Stephen did not listen at all.

He had felt a good many miseries in his time, but none to be compared to this cold vacancy within. His observation of her had confirmed his suspicions of the day before and provided reasons for the first instinctive feeling. He did not love Diana Villiers any more, and it was death to him. Something in her essence had changed, and the woman who poured out the tea and talked was a stranger, all the more a stranger because of their former intimacy. The evident change was that anger and ill-humour, disappointment and frustration, had hardened her: her face was lovely, yet its expression in repose was not amiable. Louisa Wogan did not possess a tithe of Diana's style or beauty; she was on a smaller scale entirely; but her cheerfulness, her humour, and her willingness to be pleased made a painful contrast. The important change was far more profound, however: it was as though Diana's spirit had diminished and her courage had begun to fail, if indeed it had not already broken.

To be sure, her position was difficult and extraordinary courage would have been needed to deal with it; but then he had always looked upon Diana as a woman, a being, possessed of extraordinary courage. Without courage she was not Diana. But then again, he said (his mind changing direction), there was the physical aspect to be considered: if costiveness could affect a man's courage, how much more might an adverse phase of the moon affect a woman's? He looked secretly at her face for signs that would support this notion and indeed for encouragement, but to his dismay he found that his intelligence rejected the moon and all its influence, and merely recorded an impression that the high carriage of her head, the straightness of her back he had so much admired and for so long, now appeared slightly exaggerated, the effect of indignation, of a sense of ill-usage. If, as he supposed, her spirit had been damaged, and if from strong she had become weak, then the common vices of weakness would naturally ensue. It would not be surprising to find petulance, ill-temper, and even, God forbid, self-pity, falseness, a general debasement.