'Yes, sir: and we shall be infinitely obliged for your kindness.'
'Never thank me. We have a parson aboard, and it would be most improper for a layman to take his place. Have you any other clothes?'
'No, sir.'
Jack considered. 'Jemmy Ducks and Bonden could run you up a smock of number eight sailcloth, the kind we use for royals and skysails. Though perhaps,' he went on after some thought, 'canvas might be looked upon as improper - not sufficiently formal.'
'Not at all, sir,' murmured Miss Harvill.
'I have some old shirts, sir, that could perhaps be pieced out,' said Oakes.
Jack frowned, and raising his voice to its usual pitch called 'Killick. Killick, there.'
'Sir?'
'Rouse out the bolt of scarlet silk I bought in Batavia.'
'I doubt but we should have to rummage the whole after-hold, my mate and me, with a couple of hands to heave and then put it all back again, all back again,' said Killick. 'Hours of heavy toil.'
'Nonsense,' said Jack. 'It is next to the lacquer cabinets in my store-room, packed in matting and then blue cotton. It will not take you two minutes: even less.' Killick opened his mouth; but weighing up Captain Aubrey's present mood he closed it again and retired with an inarticulate grunt of extreme displeasure. Jack went on, still addressing Miss Harvill, 'But I am sure you can sew perfectly well yourself?'
'Alas, sir, only the plainest of seams, with large stitches, and very slow - scarcely a yard in an afternoon.'
'That will never do. The gown must be ready by eight bells. Mr Oakes, there are two young men in your division who embroider their shirts uncommon pretty -'
'Willis and Hardy, sir.'
'Just so. They can each take a sleeve. Jemmy Ducks can run up a skirt in half a glass, and Bonden can look after the -the upper part.' There was a pause, and to fill it Jack, who was always rather nervous with women, said 'I trust you do not find the weather too hot, Miss Harvill? With squalls brewing astern, it often grows oppressive.'
'Oh no, sir,' said Miss Harvill with more animation than her modesty had allowed hitherto. 'In such a very beautiful ship it is never too hot.' The words were idiotic, but the inclination to please and to be pleased was evident; and the compliment to the ship could not go wrong.
Killick came in, so pinched with disapproval that he could not bring himself to say anything but 'Which I took off the matting.' Jack said 'Thankee, Killick,' turning the bolt in his hands. He opened the blue cotton wrapping and the silk appeared, a heavy, discreetly gleaming silk, deeper than scarlet, extraordinarily rich in texture and above all in colour, with the sun coming diagonally across from the stern-windows. 'Mr Oakes,' he said, 'carry this bolt to Jemmy Ducks: it is a fathom wide, and a suitable length cut from the end square with the leech will cover the young lady from top to toe. Tell Jemmy what is to be done and ask him whether there are any better tailors in the ship, and if so to carry on with their help: there is not a moment to lose. Miss Harvill, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at eight bells.' He opened the door; she made as though to curtsey, realized the absurdity and gave him a most apologetic look, saying 'I do not know how to thank you, sir. Lord, it is the most beautiful, beautiful silk I have ever seen in my life.'
The interview, though short, had been curiously wearing, and Jack sat at his ease for some time on the stern-window locker with a glass of madeira at his side. Through the open companion he could hear the usual sounds of the ship: Davidge, the officer of the watch, calling out for an even tauter foretopsail bowline; Dirty Edwards, the quartermaster at the con, telling the helmsman 'to ease her a trifle, Billy, then luff and touch her'; then Davidge again, 'I cannot tell you where to put it, Mr Bulkeley. You will have to wait until the Captain comes on deck.'
Jack finished his wine, stretched, and came on deck. As soon as he appeared, blinking in the sunlight, Davidge said 'Sir, Mr Bulkeley wants to know where the hands can hoist the wedding garland.'
'Wedding garland?' said Jack; and glancing into the waist of the ship he saw several men from Oakes's division gazing up. As he looked they mutely raised the traditional set of hoops, all decked out with ribbons and streamers. Where indeed was it to go? If Oakes had been a seaman it would have gone to the mast he belonged to; if he had commanded the ship, then to the maintopgallant stay; but in this case? 'Hoist it to the foretopgallant masthead,' he called down, and walked slowly aft. That garland had not been made during this last half hour. The streamers were not even very fresh. The infernal buggers had known what he would do - had foretold his decision - had made game of him. 'God damn them all to Helclass="underline" I must be as transparent as a piece of glass,' he said, but without particular anger. In any case his mind was diverted by the sight of Dr Maturin showing Reade a series of extraordinarily exact and rapid steps from an Irish dance. 'There,' he said, 'that is a way we have of tripping it at a marriage; but you must never wave your arms or show any emotion, far less hoot aloud, as some unhappy nations do: a most illiberal practice. Here is the Captain himself, who will tell you that hallooing as you dance is not at all genteel.'
'It is an odd thing,' said Jack, when Reade had withdrawn, 'but I seem to bring no news in this ship. The hands have had the garland ready pretty well since we weighed, and here you are showing young Reade how to dance at a wedding, though it was arranged only ten minutes ago. I doubt whether I shall even be able to astonish Mr Martin, when I ask him to officiate. He dines with us today, as I am sure you recall.'
'How I wish he may not be late: my belly fairly groans for its food. Though that may be the effect of terror. You have noticed the ship pursuing us, I make little doubt? A ship flying a man-of-war's pennant?'
'I pass over your calling a cutter a ship, but allow me to object to your pursuing. To be sure, she is sailing approximately the same course; and to be sure, she would probably like to speak to us. But she may very well be putting into a bay on the north-western side, the leeward side, of Norfolk Island on some official business; and although she is alleged to be wearing a pennant I believe I may safely ignore her. I have no time for gossiping, and we are sufficiently far apart for it not to be offensively obvious, not court-martial obvious; and we shall certainly stay far enough ahead until nightfall.'
'Can we not outsail her? Run clean away?'
'Of course not, Stephen. How can you be so strange? Both vessels are moving through the water at much the same pace, but whereas we, as a ship, a square-rigged ship, can only come up to within six points of the wind, she can come up to five; so all things being equal she must overhaul us in the long run - unless of course we put before the wind, which would put us far out of her reach but which would also be a clear proof of criminal evasion. If she is still there in the morning - if she has not run into the lee of Norfolk Island - and if there is no extraordinary change in the weather, I shall have to heave to. To stop,' he added, for a person who could call a cutter a ship after so many years at sea might need even simpler terms explained. 'But by that time Oakes's companion will be a free woman, Martin having done her business with book, bell and candle."
'You would never be forgetting Padeen, I am sure?' said Stephen in a low voice.
'No,' said Jack, smiling. 'I am not. We have no Judases aboard, I believe; and even if we had it would be a bold cutter-commander who would find him in my ship." For some minutes he studied the Eclair, the cutter in question, through his glass. She was well handled, and she might in fact be moving a little faster than the Surprise as well as lying closer to the wind; and her pennant was now quite certain when she came about: but she could not reach him by nightfall and the likelihood of her running beyond Norfolk Island into the main ocean was very small indeed even if she was in pursuit of him. He closed the telescope and said 'It is a very surprising thing, you know, the power of a young woman that sits quiet, self-contained and modest, looking down, answering civil - not like a booby, mark you, Stephen - civil, but not very much. A man could not speak chuff to such a girl, without he was a very mere Goth. Old Jarvey could not speak chuff to such a girl.'