Treason's Harbour by Patrick O’Brian Page A

standards, but they did stagger and trip over things and stop to laugh or argue from time to time, and when at last they left him at Laura Fielding's outer door it was late; so late that as he hobbled along the passage he heard Jack Aubrey's violin in the unseen courtyard, answered by a soft, complaining flute. 'The next time I shall leave my 'cello in the dear creature's house,' he said as he waited there outside the door for the music to come to an end: and then, cocking his ear to the flute's most distinctive voice, 'That must be a flauto d'amore: I have not heard one in a great while now.'
    The movement closed with a conventional flourish. Stephen glided through the door, bent low in deprecation, and sat on a cool stone bench just inside the courtyard with his 'cello beside him. Laura Fielding, at the pianoforte, gave him a very welcoming smile, Captain Aubrey a stern look, and Count Muratori, now raising his flute to his lips again, a singularly vacant stare. Most of the other people were hidden from him by the lemon-tree.
    The music was of no great importance but once he had slipped off his shoes it was pleasant sitting there with the sound weaving decorative patterns in the warm, gently stirring air: the lemon-tree was giving out its well-remembered scent - strong, but not excessive - and on the side farthest from the lanterns, the darkest corner of the court, there was a troop of fireflies. They too weaved decorative patterns and with a certain effort of the imagination, a little elimination of unnecessary notes and unnecessary flies, the two could be made to coincide.
    Ponto came pacing across, smelt Stephen in an offensively censorious way, avoided his caress, and walked off again, flinging himself down among the fireflies with a disgusted sigh. Presently he began to lick his private parts with so strong a lushing sound that it quite overlaid a pianissimo passage for the flute and Stephen lost the thread of the argument, such as it was. His mind drifted away to fireflies he had known, to American fireflies and to an account a Boston entomologist had given him of their ways. According to this gentleman the different species emitted different signals to show their willingness for sexual congress: this was natural enough - indeed, a laudable practice; but what seemed less so was the fact that certain females of say species A, moved not by any amorous warmth but by mere voracity, would imitate the signals of species B, whose males, all unsuspecting, would descend, not to a glowing nuptial couch but to a dismal butcher's block.
    The music ended, to a civil patter of applause. Mrs Fielding sprang up from her piano and met him as he advanced to make his excuses. 'Oh, oh,' she cried, glancing down at his stockinged feet, 'You have forgot your shoes.'
    'Mrs Fielding, joy,' he said, 'I shall never forget them while I live, they have killed me so cruelly. But I thought we were old enough friends not to stand upon the strictest letter of etiquette.'
    'Of course we are,' she said, squeezing his arm affectionately. 'I should certainly take off my shoes in your house, was they hurting. You know everybody? Count Muratori, Colonel O'Hara? Of course you do. Come and drink a glass of cold punch. Bring your shoes, and I will put them in my bedroom.' She led him into the house and there indeed Stephen saw that a punch-bowl had taken the place of the traditional pitchers of lemonade: nor did innovations end here, for the Naples biscuits had given way to anchovies and little daubs of fiery paste on bread. Furthermore, Mrs Fielding had spent some hours under the hands of a hairdresser; and in front of a well-lit looking-glass she had done her best to improve her already very fine complexion. Stephen, his mind directed downwards to his feet and forwards to the indifferently-rehearsed sonata that he was to play, was not distinctly aware of this, but he did notice that she had a scent upon her and that she was wearing a flame-coloured dress,