Alas for the word. The adagio called for subtle phrasing, and it called in vain: she cast him several apologetic looks until a particularly wild aberration made him pause, his bow in the air, when she laid her hands in her lap and said 'Shall we go back to the beginning?' 'By all means,' said Stephen. But it was not a successful experiment: between them they slowly murdered poor Contarini, Maturin now playing as badly as his partner, and when his A string broke with a solemn twang two thirds of the way through the adagio there was a general feeling of relief.
After this Colonel O'Hara played some modern pieces on the pianoforte with great fire and dash; but the evening never really recovered from the blow.
'Mrs Fielding is not in spirits,' observed Stephen, standing by the lemon-tree with Jack Aubrey. 'Not in real spirits, that is to say,' he added, since she could be seen talking and laughing at a great rate.
'No,' said Jack. 'She is grieving about her husband, no doubt. She mentioned him earlier in the day.' He was looking at her through the leaves with great good will and commiseration: he always esteemed women who refused him kindly, and Laura Fielding, though somewhat harassed, was unusually fine this evening in her flame-coloured dress.
'It is my belief she would welcome the sight of our backs,' said Stephen. 'As soon as it is decent, i shall make my adieus: perhaps indeed I may take up my shoes - Graham's shoes- even now, ask may I leave my 'cello, and slip away unseen.' His last words were covered by the laughter of a group of men the other side of the tree and by the approach of Captain Wagstaff, who hailed Jack in a rather loud, familiar voice, asking him 'if he had ate many of these fiery red things?' Stephen padded away into the house, where he found Mrs Fielding carefully filling glasses with punch from a kitchen jug. Her expression changed to one of the fondest welcome; she said 'Be a tesoro and help me with the tray,' and then coming close she whispered in his ear 'I am trying to get rid of them, but they will not go. Tell them it is a good-night hat. Cap, I mean.'
'I was just about to take my leave,' he said.
'Oh no," she said, amused. 'You are not to go now. Oh no, you are to stay. I must consult you. Have a glass of punch and eat one of the marzipane; I have kept them for you.'
'To tell you the truth, my dear, I believe I have eaten all I can for one day."
'Just half, and I will eat it with you.'
They carried out the trays, he the larger one with the glasses and she another on which he recognized his old friends the Naples biscuits. As they made their round Mrs Fielding made pretty speeches, thanking her guests for having come and for having played so charmingly; yet still they would not go away, but stood there, laughing unusually loud and talking with an unusual freedom. If, earlier in the evening, she had behaved with a certain wantonness - perhaps artificial wantonness - she regretted it now; but present formality and reserve did not do away with the effect. Liberty tended to give way to licence; and Wagstaff, looking from Jack to Stephen, said 'Upon my word, Doctor, you are in luck; there are men who would give a great deal for your place as butler.'
It was not until she had had a private word with the Commendatore that they began to make their farewells in small, slow groups; and even then Wagstaff stuck interminably in the open door, telling an anecdote that had just occurred to him, an anecdote whose obviously improper denouement was obliged to be stifled by the companions who led him away at last, still laughing, down the long arched echoing corridor to the street, where an unseen watcher ticked them off on his list.
At last only Aubrey and Maturin were left, Jack lingering to help his friend limp home: he was unusually aware of the fact that he was a man and that Laura Fielding was a woman, but he still regarded her with great benevolence, as one of the angelic kind, until he heard her ask him to shut Ponto into the farther court - 'He hates to go, but he will do anything for you"- and then, as he passed through the outer door, to close it for fear of cats. The dear Doctor was not leaving yet; he was going to indulge her by staying for a while; and this she said with a smile at Stephen, a smile that Jack intercepted and that gave him a blow as sharp and sudden as a pistol-shot. For although he might mistake signals addressed to himself he could scarcely be mistaken about those flying for another man.
He concealed his feelings with a very fair show of equanimity, returning his best thanks for a most enjoyable evening and hoping that he might have the honour of waiting upon Mrs Fielding again in the very near future; but there was no deceiving Ponto, who fixed nervous, placating eyes on Jack's face and who walked obediently off without a word, his ears drooping, to imprisonment in the cistern court, although he loathed sleeping anywhere but by his mistress's bed.
'For fear of cats, upon my word of honour,' said Jack, pulling the outer door to behind him. 'I should never have believed it of Stephen.'
Stephen himself was standing a little uncertainly among the many glasses and little plates scattered about the courtyard when Laura reappeared, equipped to deal with the disorder. 'I will just make a clean sweep,' she said. 'Go indoors, into my bedroom: I have put some fiamme and a pot of wine.'
'Where is Giovanna?' he asked.
'She does not stay here at night,' said Laura with a smile. 'I shall not be long.'
It was perfectly usual to receive in one's bedroom in France and in most countries that had adopted French manners, and Stephen had been in Mrs Fielding's bedroom before this- in bad weather her parties overflowed into it from her little sitting-room - but never had he seen it look so pleasant. In front of the sofa set cornerwise at the far end stood a low table of gleaming brass with a lamp upon it, a lamp that shed a pool of white light on the floor and a smaller round on the ceiling, while its translucent red shade filled the rest of the room with a rosy glow, particularly agreeable on the bare whitewashed walls. Beyond the sofa nothing could be seen very clearly ? the curtained bed loomed vaguely on the left and there were some chairs with boxes on them scattered about -but as he sat down he did notice that a large and hideous picture of Mr Fielding had been removed. He remembered it well: the lieutenant (he was acting first of the Phoenix at the time) was shown in striped pantaloons and a round hat, holding a speaking-trumpet in one hand and the broken starboard forebrace in the other as he guided the ship over a reef in a West Indian hurricane; most of it had been painted by a shipmate and Jack asserted that there was not a rope out of the exact position you would expect in such a blow, but the face had been put in by a professional hand. It was a perfectly human face, energetic, sombre, humourless, and it made a shocking contrast with the wooden, theatrical figure. In a woman with so delicate a taste as Mrs Fielding, only a high degree of devotion could have given it house-room. The dish or plate next to the decanter of Marsala on the brass table gave a much more accurate notion of what she liked: a red-figured Greek pinax from Sicily. It was chipped and repaired, but its cheerful nymphs still danced beneath their tree with infinite grace, as they had done these two thousand years or more. 'Yet how does it come about that she put those two reds together?' he asked, looking from the nymphs to the rounds of fiery paste. 'A horrid clash, indeed.'
Then he contemplated his feet for a while, before returning to the paste and its probably ingredients, apart from red pepper. 'What an elusive thing smell can be at times,' he said. 'One may know it intimately well, yet be quite unable to place it.' Again he brought his nose close to the dish, narrowing his eyes as he sniffed, and instantly, to contradict his words, the scent gave up its name: cantharides, more commonly known as Spanish fly, a substance occurring in the wing-cases of a thin iridescent yellowish-green beetle with a powerful smell, familiar to every southern naturalist and used externally for blistering, as a counter-irritant, and sometimes internally, to arouse sexual desire, the most active ingredient of love-philtres.