Captain Hornblower R. N.

by C. S. Forester

  ‘It is the Angel to which we are bidden, is it not, my dear?’ asked Maria, breaking in on his thoughts.

  ‘Why, yes.’

  ‘We have walked straight past it. You did not hear me when I spoke before.’

  They retraced their steps, and a jolly Devon servant maid led them through into the cool dark depths at the back of the inn. There were several persons in the oak-panelled room into which they were ushered, but for Hornblower there was only one. Lady Barbara was there in a blue silk dress, blue-grey, the exact colour of her eyes. From a gold chain round her neck hung a sapphire pendant, but the sapphires seemed lifeless compared with her glance. Hornblower made his bow, and mumbled as he presented Maria. The fringes of the room seemed to be deep in mist; only Lady Barbara could be clearly seen. The golden sunburn which Hornblower had last seen in her cheeks had disappeared now; her complexion was as creamy white as any great lady’s should be.

  Hornblower became aware that someone else was speaking to him – had been speaking for some time.

  ‘A most pleasurable occasion, Captain Hornblower,’ he was saying. ‘May I present you? Captain Hornblower, Mrs Elliott. Captain Hornblower, Mrs Bolton. My Flag-captain, Captain Elliott, of the Pinto. And Captain Bolton of the Caligula, who tells me he was shipmates with you in the old Indefatigable.’

  The mists were clearing from Hornblower’s eyes a little. He was able to stammer a few words, but fortunately the entrance of the innkeeper with the announcement of dinner gave him a little longer in which to collect himself. It was a circular table at which they were seated. Opposite him sat Bolton, with his ruddy cheeks and open, honest face. Hornblower still felt Bolton’s grip lingering on his palm and remembered the horniness of his hand. There was nothing of the elegant world about Bolton, then. Nor was there about Mrs Bolton, who sat on Hornblower’s right, between him and the Admiral. She was as plain and as dowdy as Maria herself – to Hornblower’s infinite relief.

  ‘I must congratulate you, Captain, on your appointment to the Sutherland,’ said Lady Barbara on his left. A breath of perfume was wafted from her as she spoke, and Hornblower’s head swam. To smell the scent of her, and to hear her voice again, was still some romantic drug to him. He did not know what he said in reply.

  ‘The innkeeper here,’ announced the Admiral to the table at large, dipping a ladle into the silver tureen before him, ‘swore to me that he knew the art of turtle soup, and I entrusted a turtle to his care. God send he spoke the truth. The sherry wine – George, the sherry – I trust you will find tolerable.’

  Hornblower incautiously took a mouthful of soup far too hot, and the pain he experienced while swallowing it down helped to bring him back to reality. He turned his head to study the Admiral to whom he would owe obedience for the next two or three years, who had won Lady Barbara’s hand in marriage after a courtship that could not have endured more than three weeks. He was tall and heavily built and darkly handsome. The star of the Bath and the red ribbon set off his glittering uniform. In age he could hardly be much over forty – only a year or two older than Hornblower – so that he must have attained to post rank at the earliest age family influence could contrive it. But the perceptible fullness about his jowl indicated to Hornblower’s mind either self-indulgence or stupidity; both, perhaps.

  So much Hornblower saw in a few seconds’ inspection. Then he forced himself to think of his manners, although between Lady Barbara and the Admiral it was hard to think clearly.

  ‘I trust you are enjoying the best of health, Lady Barbara?’ he said. A quaint quarterdeck rasp of formality crept into his voice as he tried to hit the exact tone he thought the complicated situation demanded. He saw Maria on the other side of Captain Elliott beyond Lady Barbara, raise her eyebrows a little – Maria was always sensitive to his reactions.

  ‘Indeed, yes,’ said Lady Barbara, lightly. ‘And you, Captain?’

  ‘I have never known Horatio better,’ said Maria interposing.

  ‘That is good news,’ said Lady Barbara, turning towards her. ‘Poor Captain Elliott here is still shaken sometimes with the ague he acquired at Flushing.’

  It was deftly done; Maria and Lady Barbara and Elliott were at once engaged in a conversation which left no room for Hornblower. He listened for a moment, and then forced himself to turn to Mrs Bolton. She had no fund of small talk. ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ were all she could say, seemingly, and the Admiral on her other side was deep in talk with Mrs Elliott. Hornblower lapsed into gloomy silence. Maria and Lady Barbara continued a conversation from which Elliott soon dropped out, and which was continued across his unresisting body with a constancy which not even the arrival of the next course could interrupt.

  ‘Can I carve you some of this beef, Mrs Elliot?’ asked the Admiral. ‘Hornblower, perhaps you will be good enough to attend to those ducks before you. Those are neats’ tongues, Bolton, a local delicacy – as you know, of course. Will you try them, unless this beef claims your allegiance? Elliott, tempt the ladies with that ragout. They may be partial to foreign kickshaws – made dishes are not to my taste. On the sideboard there is a cold beefsteak pie which the landlord assures me is exactly like those on which his reputation is founded, and a mutton ham such as one only finds in Devonshire. Mrs Hornblower? Barbara, my dear?’

  Hornblower, carving the ducks, felt a real pain in his breast at this casual use of the Christian name which was sacred to him. For a moment it impeded his neat dissection of long strips from the ducks’ breasts. With an effort he completed his task, and, as no one else at the table seemed to want roast duck, he took for himself the plateful he had carved. It saved him from having to meet anyone’s eyes. Lady Barbara and Maria were still talking together. It seemed to his heated imagination as if there was something specially pointed about the way Lady Barbara turned her shoulder to him. Perhaps Lady Barbara had decided that it was a poor compliment to her that he should have loved her, now that she had discovered the crudity of his taste from his choice of a wife. He hoped Maria was not being too stupid and gauche – he could overhear very little of their conversation. He could eat little of the food with which the table was covered – his appetite, always finicking, had quite disappeared. He drank thirstily of the wine which was poured for him until he realised what he was doing, and he checked himself; he disliked being drunk even more than over-eating. Then he sat and fiddled with his food on his plate, making a pretence at eating; fortunately Mrs Bolton beside him had a good appetite and was content to be silent while indulging it, as otherwise they would have made a dull pair.

  Then the table was swept clear to make room for cheese and dessert.

  ‘Pineapples not as good as we enjoyed at Panama, Captain Hornblower,’ said Lady Barbara, turning back to him unexpectedly. ‘But perhaps you will make a trial of them?’

  He was almost too flustered to cut the thing with the silver knife, so much was he taken off his guard. He helped her eventually, awkwardly. Now that he had her attention again he longed to talk to her, but the words would not come – or rather, seeing that what he found he wanted to ask her was whether she liked married life, and, while he just had enough sense not to blurt out that question, he did not have enough to substitute another for it.

  ‘Captain Elliott and Captain Bolton,’ she said, ‘have been plying me incessantly with questions about the battle between the Lydia and the Natividad. Most of them were of too technical a nature for me to answer, especially, as I told them, since you kept me immured in the orlop where I could see nothing of the fight. But everyone seems to envy me even that experience.’

  ‘Her ladyship’s right,’ roared Bolton, across the table – his voice was even louder than when Hornblower had known him as a young lieutenant. ‘Tell us about it, Hornblower.’

  Hornblower flushed and fingered his neckcloth, conscious of every eye upon him.

  ‘Spit it out, man,’ persisted Bolton; no lady’s man, and oppressed by the company, he had said hardly a word so far, but the prospect of having the bat
tle described found his tongue for him.

  ‘The Dons put up a better fight than usual? ’asked Elliott.

  ‘Well—’ began Hornblower, lured into explaining the conditions in which he had fought. Everybody listened; apt questions from one or other of the men drew him on, bit by bit. Gradually the story unfolded itself, and the loquaciousness against which Hornblower was usually on his guard led him into eloquence. He told of the long duel in the lonely Pacific, the labour and slaughter and agony, up to the moment when, leaning weakly against the quarterdeck rail, he had known triumph at the sight of his beaten enemy sinking in the darkness.

  He stopped self-consciously there, hot with the realisation that he had been guilty of the unforgivable sin of boasting of his own achievements. He looked round the table from face to face, expecting to read in them awkwardness or downright disapproval, pity or contempt. It was with amazement that instead he saw expressions which he could only consider admiring. Bolton, over there, who was at least five years his senior as a captain and ten in age, was eyeing him with something like hero-worship. Elliott, who had commanded a ship of the line under Nelson, was nodding his massive head with intense appreciation. The admiral, when Hornblower could bring himself to steal a glance at him, was still sitting transfixed. There might possibly be a shade of regret in his dark handsome face that his lifetime in the navy had brought him no similar opportunity for glory. But the simple heroism of Hornblower’s tale had fascinated him, too; he stirred himself and met Hornblower’s gaze admiringly.

  ‘Here’s a toast for us,’ he said, lifting his glass. ‘May the captain of the Sutherland rival the exploits of the captain of the Lydia.’

  The toast was drunk with a murmur of approval while Hornblower blushed and stammered. The admiration of men whose approval he valued was overwhelming; more especially as now he was beginning to realise that he had won it under false pretences. Only now was the memory returning to him of the sick fear with which he had waited the Natividad’s broadsides, the horror of mutilation which had haunted him during the battle. He was one of the contemptible few, not like Leighton and Elliott and Bolton, who had never known fear in their lives. If he had told the whole truth, told of his emotions as well as of the mere manoeuvres and incidents of the fight, they would be sorry for him, as for a cripple, and the glory of the Lydia’s victory would evaporate. His embarrassment was relieved by Lady Barbara arising from the table and the other women following her example.

  ‘Do not sit too long over your wine,’ said Lady Barbara, as the men stood for them. ‘Captain Hornblower is a whist player of renown, and there are cards waiting for us.’

  IV

  When they walked away from the Angel through the pitch dark street Maria clung eagerly to Hornblower’s arm.

  ‘A delightful evening, my dear,’ she said. ‘Lady Barbara seems to be a very genteel person.’

  ‘I’m glad you have enjoyed yourself,’ said Hornblower. He knew only too well that Maria after any party to which he accompanied her delighted in discussing the others who had been present. He shrank from the inevitable dissection of Lady Barbara which was bound to come.

  ‘She had breeding,’ said Maria, inexorably, ‘far beyond what I was led to expect by what you told me about her.’

  Searching back in his memory Hornblower realised that he had only laid stress on her fine courage and her ability to mix with men without embarrassment. At that time it had pleased Maria to think of an Earl’s daughter as a masculine hoyden; now she was just as pleased to revert to the traditional attitude, admiring her for her breeding, and being gratified at her condescension.

  ‘She is a very charming woman,’ he said, cautiously falling in with Maria’s mood.

  ‘She asked me if I were going to accompany you on your approaching voyage, and I explained that with the hopes of the future which we were beginning to cherish it was inadvisable.’

  ‘You told her that?’ asked Hornblower sharply. At the last moment he was able to keep the anguish out of his voice.

  ‘She wished me joy,’ said Maria, ‘and asked me to give you her fe-felicitations.’

  It irked Hornblower inexpressibly to think of Maria’s discussing her pregnancy with Lady Barbara. He would not allow himself to think why. But the thought of Lady Barbara’s knowledge was one more complexity in the whirl of thoughts in his mind, and there was no chance of straightening anything out in the course of the short walk to their lodgings.

  ‘Oh,’ said Maria when they were in their bedroom. ‘How tight those shoes were!’

  She chaffed her feet in the white cotton stockings as she sat in the low chair; from the candle on the dressing table her shadow danced on the opposite wall. The shadow of the bed tester lay in a grim black rectangle on the ceiling.

  ‘Hang up that best coat of yours carefully,’ said Maria, beginning to take the pins out of her hair.

  ‘I’m not ready for sleep,’ said Hornblower, despairingly.

  He felt that no price would be too great to pay at the moment to be able to slip away to the solitude of his ship. But he certainly could not do that; the hour would make such a thing odd and the full dress uniform he wore would make it preposterous.

  ‘Not ready for sleep!’ It was so like Maria to repeat his words. ‘How strange, after this tiring evening! Did you eat too much roast duck?’

  ‘No,’ said Hornblower. It was hopeless to try to explain a too rapidly working mind to Maria, hopeless to try to escape. Any attempt to do so would only hurt her feelings, and he knew by experience he could never make himself do that. With a sigh he began to unbuckle his sword.

  ‘You have only to compose yourself in bed and you will sleep,’ said Maria, from her own constant experience. ‘We have few enough nights together left to us now, darling.’

  That was so; Admiral Leighton had told them that the Pluto, Caligula and Sutherland were ordered to escort as far as the Tagus an East India convoy which was even then assembling. And that raised once more the cursed question of the shortage of men – how the devil was he to complete his crew in time? Bodmin Assizes might send him a few more criminals. His lieutenants, due to return any day now, might bring in a few volunteers. But he needed fifty more topmen, and topmen could not be picked up in gaols, nor in the market squares.

  ‘It is a hard service,’ said Maria, thinking of the approaching separation.

  ‘Better than counters at eightpence a week,’ replied Hornblower, forcing himself to speak lightly.

  Before their marriage Maria had taught in a school with graduated fees – readers paid fourpence, writers sixpence, and counters eightpence.

  ‘Indeed yes,’ said Maria. ‘I owe much to you, Horatio. Here’s your nightshirt, ready for you. The torment I went through when Miss Wentworth found I had taught Alice Stone the multiplication table although her parents only paid fourpence! And then the ungrateful minx egged that little Hopper boy to let those mice loose in the schoolroom. But I’d suffer it all again, darling, if – if that would keep you near me.’

  ‘Not while duty calls, my dear,’ said Hornblower, diving into his nightshirt. ‘But I’ll be back with a bagful of guineas for prize money before two years are up. Mark my words.’

  ‘Two years!’ said Maria pitifully.

  Hornblower yawned elaborately, and Maria rose to the bait thus deftly cast, just as Hornblower had been sure she would.

  ‘And you said you were not ready for sleep!’ she said.

  ‘It has come upon me now,’ said Hornblower. ‘Perhaps the admiral’s port is beginning to take effect. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I shall say “good night” now, my love.’

  He kissed her as she sat before the dressing table, and, turning hastily away, he climbed up into the big bed. There, lying on the farthest edge, keeping rigidly still, he lay until Maria had blown out the candle and climbed up beside him, until her breathing grew quiet and regular. Only then could he relax and change position and give rein to the galloping thoughts coursing through his mind.
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  He remembered what Bolton had said to him with a wink and a nod when they found themselves together at one time during the evening in a corner where they could not be overheard.

  ‘He means six votes to the Government,’ said Bolton, jerking his head towards the Admiral.

  Bolton was as stupid as a good seaman could be, but he had been in London recently and attended a levee and had heard the gossip. The poor old King was going mad again, a Regency was imminent, and with the Regency the Tories might go out and the Whigs might come in – the six votes of the Leighton interests were valuable. With the Marquis Wellesley as Foreign Secretary, and Henry Wellesley as Ambassador in Spain, and Sir Arthur Wellesley – what was his new title? Lord Wellington of course – as Commander in Chief in the Peninsula it was not surprising to find Lady Barbara Wellesley married to Sir Percy Leighton, and still less to find the latter given a command in the Mediterranean. The virulence of the Opposition was growing day by day, and the history of the world hung in the balance.

  Hornblower shifted restlessly in bed at the thought, but a slight movement by Maria in reply fixed him rigid again. It was only a small party of men – the Wellesleys chief among them – who still had the resolution to continue the struggle against the Corsican’s dominion. The smallest check, on land, at sea, or in Parliament, might pull them from their high positions, bring their heads perilously near the block, and tumble all Europe into ruin.