The Nutmeg of Consolation

  Certainly he did, and would be delighted to drink coffee in his own vessel with Dr Maturin and the Captain as soon as his lieutenants had done their business. This consisted of taking a hundred and twenty-five silver dollars and three baskets of bird's-nests by way of toll; and since Li Po had been telling out the coins with a morose deliberation ever since that well-known proa had been seen, picking the lightest and most dubious in his store, the transaction did not take long. Yet even in that short time Stephen had heard enough of Wan Da's description of the French frigate Cornélie, now ready for sea in Pulo Prabang, and her frantic attempts at obtaining a minimum of stores for the voyage, to refuse the invitation on Jack's behalf—'Listen, brother,' said he in an aside, 'we are asked across to the other ship; but it will only mean your listening to an immense amount of talk or making it longer still by translation: I will tell you the gist when I come back'—and to go across alone.

  'Yes,' said Wan Da, leading Stephen to a range of cushions, 'she herself is ready for sea; she lies in the fairway; and all the most experienced navigators have advised them, given the season of the year, to sail by the Salibabu Passage. So they will, they swear, if only they can lay in supplies enough to take them there. And indeed they are doing fairly well. They have no money or credit of course, but they have traded six nine-pounders, with a quantity of roundshot and grape, twenty-seven muskets, two cables, one bower anchor and a kedge, for food, mostly sago. How sick of sago they will become, long before the Salibabu Passage, ha, ha, ha!'

  'Do you really believe that an armed and desperate ship will confine itself to sago, Wan Da?'

  'Not if it can possibly meet a weaker ship in some far corner of the sea. A tiger must be served. But then as I was telling you aboard the junk, there is the question of powder. Their gunner was a careless man, and even when they first came many barrels had been spoilt: then there was the immeasurable rain in the typhoon—your typhoon: it really grieved my heart to hear your news,' said Wan Da, laying his hand on Stephen's knee. 'And all they had ashore was flooded. Now the French envoy, the captain and all the officers have given up their rings, their watches and ornaments, what table silver they have, their silver fittings—shoe-buckles, locks and hinges—to make up a sum to buy as many barrels or even half-barrels as the Sultan will let them have.'

  'It is of course a royal monopoly?'

  'Oh yes. Except for the Chinese and their fireworks. What quantities the French may privately have had from them, I cannot tell. Not much, I should think, and that little of no great force.'

  'What is the Sultan's view?'

  'He is indifferent. Now that Hafsa is so great with child, she has brought him a new concubine from Bali, an enchanting long-legged creature like a boy, said to be remarkably perverse.' Wan Da reflected for some moments, with an inward smile, and went on, 'He is quite besotted, and he leaves everything to the vizier.'

  Stephen knew Wan Da intimately. They had hunted together and Wan Da had acted as the intermediary in Stephen's purchasing the Council's good-will by means of draughts on Shao Yen. After some thought he brought out yet another of these papers with the Chinese banker's well-known red seal and said 'Wan Da, pray do me the very great kindness of seeing whether this will persuade the Vizier to set his face against powder for the French. Point out to him that they may use it to bombard Prabang in revenge for having been given no treaty: they might confiscate the English subsidy, strip the royal treasury, violate the concubines. You owe the French nothing. You have protected them according to your word. What happens to them far away, in the remote Salibabu Passage for example, is no concern of yours. In any event as you know very well whatever is to happen has already been decided: what is written is written.'

  'Very true,' said Wan Da. 'What is written is certainly written: it would be folly to deny it.' But he did not seem wholly decided or convinced and when he turned to the coffee-pot once more he did so with a constrained, embarrassed smile.

  'Do you remember Mr Fox's rifled gun, the one he called the Manton?' asked Stephen after another cup or so and some words about the honey-bear.

  Wan Da's expression changed to one of the most pleasurable recollection, retrospective joy, appreciation. 'The one with the swan's head on the lock?'

  Stephen nodded and said 'It is now mine. Would you do me the honour of accepting it as a keepsake? I will give it to your boat's crew when they take me back; for now, dear Wan Da, I am obliged to leave you.'

  'Your Excellency,' said a secretary, 'one of the big local junks has come in, loaded to the gunwales with distressed British seamen.'

  'From one of the Company's ships?'

  'Oh no, sir: they are mostly white or whitish as far as one can see through the dirt. Jackson looked at them through his telescope, and he thought they belonged to the Mauritius privateer that put in last month.'

  'Well, damn them all. Do the necessary, Mr Warner: the cavalry barracks is reasonably healthy; and you can indent upon Major Bentinck.'

  The Governor returned to his orchid, an epiphyte poised high on a stand, so that its spray of about fifty white flowers—white of a singular purity with golden centres—hung down to his drawing-board, almost touching the particular clock by which he timed his moments of leisure. He was too deeply concerned with exact structure to be a fast worker and he had only added nineteen before the secretary returned and said 'I do beg your pardon, Excellency, but there is a fellow from the junk who insists on seeing you—has papers he will give only into your hands. He says he is a medical man, but he has no wig, and he has not shaved for a week.'

  'Is his name Maturin?'

  'I am ashamed to say I did not catch it, sir: he was in quite a passion by the time I reached the hall. A small slight pale ill-looking man.'

  'Desire him to walk in, and cancel my engagements with the Dato Selim and Mr Pierson.' He put his drawing-board, watercolours and orchid carefully to one side and pressed the well-worn knob on his clock; as the door opened he hurried forward crying 'My dear Maturin, how very happy I am to see you! We had given you up for lost. I trust you are well?'

  'Perfectly well, I thank you, Governor; only a little ruffled,' said Stephen, whose face was indeed somewhat less sallow than usual. 'The sergeant offered me fourpence to go away.'

  'I am so sorry: almost all the people have been changed. But do please sit down. Drink some orangeado—here is an ice-cold jug—and tell me what has happened all this time.'

  'Fox successfully negotiated his treaty. The Diane then sailed to keep a rendezvous off the False Natunas. The other ship did not appear and at the end of the stipulated time Aubrey steered for Batavia. In the night the frigate struck on an uncharted reef at the height of a spring-tide. The sea was reasonably placid, the stranding far from disastrous—in no way a wreck—but it proved impossible to get her off, in spite of the most extreme exertions, and we had to resign ourselves to waiting for the next very high water at the change of the moon. Mr Fox thought it his duty to lose no time and he sailed for Batavia together with his suite in the stoutest of the ship's boats, carrying the treaty. He was overtaken by the typhoon that destroyed the Diane on her reef, and I fear he must necessarily have been lost. You have had no word?'

  'No word at all; nor could there be any word, I am afraid. That typhoon was horribly destructive: two Indiamen were dismasted and many, many country ships foundered. There was no conceivable hope for an open boat.'

  After a pause Maturin said 'He left an authenticated duplicate with his secretary, Mr Edwards, as a formal precaution. I have it here'—holding up a folder. 'It was of course Edwards's office and privilege to bring it to you, but the poor young man is prostrated with dysentery and he begged me to take it, with his duty and respectful compliments, in order that no time should be lost.'

  'Very proper in him.' Raffles took the envelope from the folder. 'You will forgive me?'

  'Of course.'

  'No envoy ever obtained better terms,' said Raffles at last. 'They might have been dictated by the Ministry.
' His satisfaction was not quite whole-hearted however and having looked questioningly at Stephen he went on, 'But there is an accompanying letter.'

  'There is, I am afraid,' said Stephen. 'I read it to see whether my part in the transaction was given away—revealed—I will not say betrayed. A certain strangeness had led me to suppose that this might possibly be the case.'

  'That at least he did not do,' said Raffles. 'But it is a shockingly discreditable piece of invective. Poor Fox. I have seen this coming for some years: but to such a degree . . . You may not think so, Maturin, but as a young man he was excellent company. Terribly discreditable,' he said again, looking at the neat, deliberate writing with distress.

  'So discreditable that I was tempted to suppress it.'

  'Does Mr Edwards know the contents of the letter?'

  'He does not, poor young man. Indeed, he builds all his hopes on delivering the treaty and whatever goes with it in Whitehall.'

  'I see. I see. You can absolutely assert that, Maturin?'

  'I can, too.'

  'It would blast Fox's reputation if it were made public. All his friends would regret it extremely . . . Olivia, my dear,' he cried as his wife passed the french window, wearing gardening-gloves, 'here is Dr Maturin back from his travels, and most of his companions with him.'

  'I beg your pardon most humbly, ma'am, for appearing in this state, in pantaloons, unpowdered hair and what might almost be taken for a beard,' said Stephen. 'Captain Aubrey declared that I should not go, that I should bring disgrace on the service; but I evaded him. He himself will not set foot on shore nor will any of his men until they are fit for an admiral's inspection. For you are to understand, ma'am, that we travelled in an unwashed junk ordinarily employed in carrying ore, a potent source of filth, and our garments were stowed in a bewildering multiplicity of compartments; so it will be an hour or so before he can do himself the honour of waiting on you. In the meantime, however, he desires his best compliments.'

  Mrs Raffles smiled, said that she was very happy to see Dr Maturin again, that she would at once send to ask Captain Aubrey and his officers to dine that afternoon, and that she would now leave them.

  'Now,' said Raffles, as the men sat down again, 'do you choose to tell me how the treaty was obtained?'

  'There were of course many factors—the subsidy, Fox's arguments and so on-—but one was the fact that your banker and that dear man van Buren brought me acquainted with the proper intermediaries, and I was able to conciliate the good-will of a majority in the council.'

  'I hope you do not suppose that Government will ever refund more than a tenth part of your expenditure, and that only after seven years of impertinent repetitious questioning?'

  'I do not. It was an indulgence I allowed myself: mostly for the good cause but also I must admit from a restless desire to undermine Ledward and his friend.'

  'Oh, what happened to them?'

  'It appears that having lost all credit at court they were killed in an affray.'

  'I beg pardon.'

  'And since the French had virtually no money at all, Ledward having gambled it away, there was no competition, so the indulgence was not a costly one. I mean to offer myself another: the purchase of a tolerable merchantman, approved for swift sailing.'

  'So you do not intend to go home in an Indiaman?'

  'Never in life. Did I not tell you of our rendezvous with—with another vessel in these waters or farther afield, and our return by way of New South Wales?'

  'Yes, you did, but I had imagined the time was past.'

  'Not at all; several possibilities were foreseen. Besides, in your private ear, it is not inconceivable that we may meet the Cornélie.'

  'Would not that call for a very considerable ship—a very considerable outlay?'

  'Very considerable indeed, no doubt. But then I have a not inconsiderable surplus in Shao Yen's hands; my gifts were pitifully small. And if that is not enough I can always draw on London.' A pause, an unnatural pause. 'You look down, sir: you have, if I may so express myself, an uneasy, embarrassed air.'

  'Why, to tell you the truth, Maturin, I must confess that I feel both uneasy and embarrassed. There is no personal mail for you or Aubrey—I presume it is gone to New South Wales—but I have what may be very wretched news for you. Did you not tell me that you had changed your unsatisfactory bank?'

  'So I did too. As sullen, unobliging a set of illiterate dogs as ever you could wish to see.'

  'And that in their place you had chosen Smith and Clowes?'

  'Just so.'

  'Then with very much regret I am obliged to tell you that Smith and Clowes have suspended payment. They are broke. There may eventually be some small dividend for the creditors, but at present there is not the least possibility of your drawing on them.'

  Stephen had an instant, brilliantly clear vision of the attorney's office in Portsmouth in which the document requiring his bank to transfer all he possessed to Smith and Clowes was written, together with a power of attorney addressed to Sir Joseph Blaine, who was also the executor of his will—a document framed by an able lawyer, a man of business thoroughly accustomed to dealing with shifts, evasions and bad faith, an aged dusty man who took real pleasure in his task, his toothless jaws munching as his pen scratched on and on. The dusty room was lined with books, for reference rather than delight, and the dusty window looked out on to a blank wall: a reflector hanging at an angle sent a certain hint of day to the dim ceiling, and the reflection of a passing gull moved across as a darker shadow among the cobwebs.

  'There, sir,' said the lawyer, 'if you will copy that, for in such matters holograph is always best, I defy the most contentious cavilling prig in the kingdom to get round it. You will not forget to sign both documents and send them off to Sir Joseph by the evening post. The bag is not sealed until half past five o'clock, which gives you plenty of time to copy two sheets wrote small and to go aboard before the turn of the tide.'

  The recollection and even the attorney's creaking little speech could scarcely have taken a heartbeat of time, for here was Raffles' voice going on almost without the loss of a word, 'But on the other hand, I do have some less dismal tidings, I am happy to say, some trifling set-off. We have recently weighed a Dutch twenty-gun ship—she had been sunk on purpose several months ago because of infection—and now she is as trim and tight as the day she was launched. If we were on the terrace you could see her with a glass; she lies just inside the island by the Dutch Company's yard. As I say, she is only a twenty-gun ship, so she can hardly set about the Cornélie, but at least she may enable you to keep your appointment.'

  'You astonish me, Governor. I am amazed, happily amazed,' said Stephen.

  'I am glad of that,' said Raffles, looking at him doubtfully.

  'May I go and tell Aubrey of our good fortune? I left him in a sombre mood, conning over the innumerable ship's books and papers belonging to the late Diane that he must present to the senior naval officer here: he is sadly puzzled, because when the Dyaks attacked our island he lost both his purser and his clerk.'

  'Lord, Maturin,' cried Raffles, 'you never told me about that.'

  'I am a very poor reporter of battles. I do hot see them nor in general do I take part. In this one I was in the hospital-tent almost all the time; I did not even join in the final charge. It was a severe engagement. They killed and wounded many of our people: we destroyed them entirely. But Captain Aubrey will give you an exact account. He leapt about the field of blood as though it were his native heath. You know a tiger's coughing roar, of course?'

  'Of course.'

  'That is the noise he makes when in battle. Will I go and fetch him now, and shift my clothes into something more worthy of dear Mrs Raffles' table?'

  'Certainly: my barge will carry you over at once, and bring our guests back. Pray, how many officers survived?'

  'All but the purser, the clerk and one midshipman, though Fielding will limp the days of his life, and Bennett, a master's mate, is still in a ver
y precarious state, while little Reade lost an arm.'

  'That little curly headed boy?'

  'No. The little curly headed boy was killed.'

  Raffles shook his head; but there was no decent comment, and he only said 'I will send for the barge.' Having done so he said 'As for Aubrey, ship's books and senior naval officer, there is none here, none nearer than Colombo: that is why I have such a free hand with this Dutch ship. I may observe that I have known cases where all a ship's books and papers were lost in a wreck or by enemy action, and the authorities remained totally unmoved, giving a quietus out of hand; whereas a missing docket or receipt or signature in one of the many, many volumes has meant interminable wrangling correspondence and accounts unsettled for seven years, or even ten. I throw this out quite unofficially, of course.'

  On his way down to the water's edge Stephen asked the Governor's coxswain to lead him to a toy-shop. 'I wish to buy dolls suitable for three little Chinese girls,' he said; for it had been arranged that he and Jack should stay at the Residence, and as Li Po was urgent to sail for his cargo of ore on the next tide, this was probably the last time he would see them.

  'Dolls, sir?' said the coxswain in a wondering voice; and he considered for some time before going on, 'I don't know any but a Dutch shop, and what a Chinese girl would make of a Dutch doll I cannot tell. You will know best, sir, in view of the parties concerned. In view of the parties concerned,' he repeated, with some satisfaction.

  He led Stephen to a shop by a canal, a shop with two bow windows on either side of an open door in which there sat a fat Batavian sloven.

  'The gentleman wants to buy a doll,' said the coxswain. 'Doll,' he said much louder, jerking his arm and head in a wooden manner.

  The sloven looked at them with pale narrowed suspicious eyes, but at length recognizing the Governor's livery she heaved herself up and let them into the shop. The choice was limited to half a dozen figures showing the clothes fashionable in Paris several years ago. She turned up their skirts and petticoats to show their frilly and above all removable drawers: 'Real lace, yis, yis,' she said. Having gazed at them for some minutes Stephen, in despair, picked the three less offensive images.