Lord Hornblower

Chapter XVI

Hornblower sat in his sitting-room in the Hôtel Meurice in Paris rereading the crackling parchment document that had arrived for him the previous day. The wording of it might be called as gratifying as the purport of it, to one who cared for such things.

As the grandeur and stability of the British Empire depend chiefly upon knowledge and experience in maritime affairs, We esteem those worthy of the highest honours who, acting under Our influence, exert themselves in maintaining Our dominion over the sea. It is for this reason that We have determined to advance to the degree of Peerage Our trusty and well beloved Sir Horatio Hornblower, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, who, being descended from an ancient family in Kent, and educated from his youth in the sea service, hath through several posts arrived to high station and command in Our navy, by the strength of his own abilities, and a merit distinguished by Us, in the many important services, which he has performed with remarkable fidelity, courage and success. In the late vigorous wars, which raged so many years in Europe; wars fruitful of naval combats and expeditions; there was scarce any action of consequence wherein he did not bear a principal part, nor were any dangers or difficulties too great, but he surmounted them by his exquisite conduct, and a good fortune that never failed him.”

It is just, therefore, that We should distinguish with higher titles a subject who has so eminently served Us and his country, both as monuments of his own merit, and to influence others into a love and pursuit of virtue.

So now he was a Peer of the Realm, a Baron of the United Kingdom, Lord Hornblower of Smallbridge, County of Kent. There were only two or three other examples in history of a naval officer being raised to the peerage before attaining flag rank. Lord Hornblower of Smallbridge; of course he had decided to retain his own name in his title. There might be something grotesque about the name of Hornblower, and yet he was fond of it, and he had no desire to lose it in the almost anonymity of Lord Smallbridge or Lord Something-else. Pellew, he had heard, had elected to become Lord Exmouth. That might suit Pellew, but it would not suit him. His brother-in-law, when he received a step in the peerage, had actually reverted from a territorial to a personal title, becoming Marquis Wellesley instead of Earl of Mornington. Another brother-in-law, unable to use the Wellesley name in consequence of his brother’s pre-emption of it, had become Wellington, apparently in an effort to retain as much of the family name as possible. He was a Duke now, far above a mere Baron, and yet they were all three Peers together. Lords, hereditary legislators. Little Richard was now the Honourable Richard Hornblower, and some time would be Lord Hornblower in succession to his father. All the formalities regarding titles were a little amusing. Barbara, for instance; as the daughter of an earl—it was her father’s rank that mattered, not the fact that one brother was now a marquis and one a duke—she had had higher precedence than as the wife of a Knight of the Bath. She had been Lady Barbara Hornblower up to yesterday. But now as a result of her husband’s peerage she would be Lady Hornblower. Lord and Lady Hornblower. It sounded well. It was a great honour and distinction, the coping-stone of his professional career. Oh, to be truthful about it, it was the sheerest lot of tommy-nonsense. Robes and a coronet. Hornblower stiffened in his chair as a thought struck him. Freeman’s ridiculous prophecy over the cards in the cabin of the Flame about a golden crown had this much confirmation now. It was an amazingly shrewd guess on the part of Freeman; it had never occurred to him himself for one moment that he might become a peer. But the rest of Freeman’s prophecy had fallen to the ground. Danger and a fair woman, Freeman had foreseen. And now the danger was all over with the coming of peace, and there was no fair woman in his life, unless Barbara, with her blue eyes and light-brown hair, could be called fair.

He rose to his feet in his irritation, and perhaps was going to stamp round the room, but Barbara came in at that moment from her bedroom, ready for the Ambassador’s party. She was all in unrelieved white, for the party had been planned as a culminating demonstration of loyalty to the Bourbons, and the women were to wear white regardless as to whether or not their complexions could stand it; maybe that was the most convincing proof of loyalty to the newly restored dynasty that could be offered. Hornblower picked up his hat and cloak in readiness to escort her; it was the fortieth time in forty nights, he fancied, that he had done just the same thing.

“We won’t stay at Arthur’s late,” said Barbara.

Arthur was her brother the Duke of Wellington, lately and strangely transferred from commanding the army fighting France to His Britannic Majesty’s Embassy to His Most Christian Majesty. Hornblower looked his surprise.

“We shall go on to the Polignacs’,” explained Barbara. “To meet M. le Prince.”

“Very well, dear,” said Hornblower. He thought he kept the resignation out of his voice perfectly convincingly.

M. le Prince; that was the Prince of Condé, of a younger Bourbon line. Hornblower had begun to learn his way through the complexities of French society—the complexities of the last century transported bodily back into this. He wondered if he were the only man who thought of them as outmoded anachronisms. M. le Prince; M. le Duc—that was the Duc de Bourbon, wasn’t it? Monsieur—plain Monsieur, with no honorifics at all—was the Comte d’Artois, the King’s brother and heir. Monseigneur, on the other hand, was the Duc d’Angoulême, Monsieur’s son, who would one of these days be Dauphin if his father survived his uncle. The very name of Dauphin was anachronistic, smacking of the Dark Ages. And the future Dauphin, as Hornblower well knew, was a man of convinced stupidity whose characteristic most easily remembered was a high-pitched mirthless laugh something like the cackling of a hen.

They had descended the stairs by now and Brown was waiting to hand them into the waiting carriage.

“The British Embassy, Brown,” said Hornblower.

“Yes, my lord.”

Brown had not stumbled over the new title once in the twenty-four hours he had borne it; Hornblower felt in his exasperation that he would have given anything for Brown to slip into ‘Aye aye, sir’. But Brown was too clear-headed and quick-thinking a person to make any such blunder; it was surprising that Brown should have elected to stay on in his service. He might well have made a career for himself.

“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying,” said Barbara.

“Please forgive me, dear,” said Hornblower—there was no denying the accusation.

“It’s very important indeed,” said Barbara. “Arthur is going to Vienna to represent us at the Congress. Castlereagh has to come home to manage the House.”

“Arthur will give up the Embassy?” asked Hornblower, making polite conversation. The carriage roared over the cobbles; the occasional lights revealed through the windows the bustling multi-uniformed crowd of Paris in the whirl of peace.

“Of course. This is much more important. All the world will be in Vienna—every Court, in the world will be represented.”

“I suppose so,” said Hornblower. The destinies of the world were to be decided at the Congress.

“That’s what I was going to tell you about. Arthur will need a hostess there—there’ll be constant entertaining, of course—and he has asked me to come and act for him.”

“My God!” Polite conversation had led straight to the brink of this abyss.

“Don’t you think it’s wonderful?” asked Barbara.

Hornblower was on the point of saying ‘Yes, dear’ when rebellion surged up within him. He had endured for his wife’s sake uncounted martyrdoms already. And this would be one far more violent and prolonged. Barbara would be the lady of the house, hostess of the most important delegate to the most important Congress in the world. The seeds of diplomacy, Hornblower had already learned, were planted far more often in drawing-rooms than in Cabinets. Barbara’s drawing-room would be a place of intrigue and double-dealing. She would be hostess, Wellington would be the man of the house, and he—what would he be? Something even more unnecessary than he was at present. Hornblower saw stretching before him a three months’ vista of salons and balls and visits to the ballet, outside the inner circle, outside the outer circle too. No Cabinet secrets would be entrusted to him, and he did not want to have anything to do with the petty gossip and polite scandal of the great world. A fish out of water was what he would be—and not a bad metaphor, either, when applied to a naval officer in the salons of Vienna.

“You don’t answer me?” said Barbara. “I’m utterly damned if I’ll do it!” said Hornblower—strange that, with all his tact and intuition, he always took a sledge-hammer in his rare arguments with Barbara, to kill flies with.

“You won’t do it, dear?”

In the course of that brief sentence Barbara’s tone changed from disappointment at the beginning to bitter hostility at the end.

“No!” said Hornblower, in a roar. He had kept the lid on his feelings for so long and so tightly that the explosion was violent when it came.

“You’ll deprive me of the greatest thing that has ever happened to me?” said Barbara, a hint of ice edging the words.

Hornblower fought down his feelings. It would be easier to give way—ever so easy. But no, he would not. Could not. Yet Barbara was quite right about its being a wonderful thing. To be hostess to a European Congress, to help mould the future of the world—and then, on the other hand, Hornblower had no wish whatever to be a member, and an unimportant member at that, of the Wellesley clan. He had been captain of a ship too long. He did not like politics, not even politics on a European scale. He did not want to kiss the hands of Hungarian countesses, and exchange inanities with Russian grand dukes. That had been fun in the old days when his professional reputation hinged on some such success, as it had done. But he needed more of a motive than the mere maintenance of his reputation as a beau.

Quarrels in a carriage always seemed to reach a climax just as the drive ended. The carriage had halted and porters in the Wellington livery were opening the door before Hornblower had had time either to explain or make amends. As they walked into the Embassy Hornblower’s apprehensive side glances revealed that Barbara’s colour was high and her eyes dangerously bright. So they remained during the whole of the reception; Hornblower looked across the room at her whenever he could, and every time she was clearly in high spirits, or laughing with the groups in conversation with her, tapping with her fan. Was she flirting? The red coats and the blue coats, the black coats and the green coats, that assembled round her bent their shoulders in obvious deference to her. Every glance Hornblower took seemed to increase his resentment.

But he fought it down, determined to make amends.

“You had better go to Vienna, dear,” he said, as they were once more in the carriage on their way to the Polignacs’. “Arthur needs you—it’s your duty.”

“And you?” Barbara’s tone was still chilly.

“You don’t need me. The skeleton at the feast, dear. I’ll go to Smallbridge.”

“That is very kind of you,” said Barbara. Proud as she was, she resented a little having to be beholden to anyone. To ask permission was bad enough; to receive grudging permission was dreadful.

Yet here they were at the Polignacs’.

“Milord and milady Hornblower,” roared the major-domo.

They paid their respects to the Prince, received their hosts’ and hostess’s greetings. What in the world—? What—? Hornblower’s head was spinning. His heart was pounding, and there was a roaring in his ears like when he had battled for his life in the waters of the Loire. The whole glittering room was seemingly banked in fog, save for a single face. Marie was looking at him across the room, a troubled smile on her lips. Marie! Horablower swept his hand over his face, forced himself to think clearly as he had sometimes had to do when exhausted in battle. Marie! Not so many months before his marriage to Barbara he had told Marie he loved her, and he had been on the verge of sincerity when he said it. And she had told him she loved him, and he had felt her tears on his face. Marie the tender, the devoted, the sincere. Marie, who had needed him, whose memory he had betrayed to marry Barbara.

He forced himself to cross the room to her, to kiss with simple formality the hand she offered. That troubled smile was still on her lips; she had looked like that when—when—when he had selfishly taken all she had to give, like some thoughtless child claiming a sacrifice from a loving mother. How could he meet her eyes again? And yet he did. They looked each other over with mock whimsicality. Hornblower had the impression of something vivid and vital. Marie was dressed in cloth of gold. Her eyes seemed to burn into him—that was no careless metaphor. Mentally he tried to cling to Barbara, like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken mast tossing in the surf. Barbara slim and elegant; and Marie warm and opulent. Barbara in white which did not do her justice, Marie in gold. Barbara’s blue eyes, sparkling, and Marie’s brown eyes, warm and tender. Barbara’s hair fair and almost brown; Marie’s, golden and almost auburn. It did not do to think about Barbara while looking at Marie.

Here was the Count, quizzically kindly, awaiting his attention—the kindliest man in all the world, whose three sons had died for France, and who had told Hornblower once that he felt towards him as towards a son. Hornblower clasped hands with him in an outpouring of affection. The introductions were not easy. It was not easy to introduce his wife and his mistress.

“Lady Hornblower—Mme la Vicomtesse de Graçay. Barbara, my dear—M. le Comte de Graçay.”

Were they sizing each other up, these two women? Were they measuring swords, his wife and his mistress, the woman whom he had publicly chosen and the one he had privately loved?

“It was M. le Comte,” said Hornblower, feverishly, “and his daughter-in-law who helped me escape from France. They hid me until the pursuit was over.”

“I remember,” said Barbara. She turned to them and spoke in her shocking schoolroom French. “I am eternally grateful to you for what you did for my husband.”

It was difficult. There was a puzzled look on the faces of Marie and the Count; this was nothing like the wife Hornblower had described to them four years ago when he had been a fugitive hidden in their house. They could hardly be expected to know that Maria was dead and that Hornblower had promptly married Barbara, who was as unlike her predecessor as she well could be.

“We would do as much again, madame,” said the Count. “Fortunately there will never be any need.”

“And Lieutenant Bush?” asked Marie of Hornblower. “I hope he is well?”

“He is dead, madame. He was killed in the last month of the war. He was a captain before he died.”

“Oh!”

It was silly to say he had been a captain. For anyone else it would not have been. A naval officer hungered and yearned so inexpressibly for that promotion that speaking of a casual acquaintance one could think his death requited by his captaincy. But not with Bush.

“I am sorry,” said the Count. He hesitated before he spoke again—now that they had emerged from the nightmare of war it was apprehensively that one asked about old friends who might have been killed. “But Brown? That pillar of strength? He’s well?”

“Perfectly well, M. le Comte. He is my confidential servant at this moment.”

“We read a little about your escape,” said Marie.

“In the usual garbled Bonaparte form,” added the Count, “You took a ship—the—the—”

“The Witch of Endor, sir.”

Was all this too painful or too pleasant? Memories were crowding in on him, memories of the Château de Graçay, of the escape down the Loire, of the glorious return to England; memories of Bush; and memories—honey-sweet memories—of Marie. He met her eyes, and the kindness in them was unfathomable. God! This was unendurable.

“But we have not done what we should have done at the very first,” said the Count. “We have not offered our felicitations, our congratulations, on the recognition your services have received from your country. You are an English lord, and I well know how much that implies. My sincerest congratulations, milord. Nothing—nothing can ever give me greater pleasure.”

“Nor me,” said Marie.

“Thank you, thank you,” said Hornblower. He bowed shyly. It was for him, too, one of the greatest pleasures in his life to see the pride and affection beaming in the old Count’s face.

Hornblower became aware that Barbara standing by had lost the thread of the conversation. He offered her a hurried English translation, and she nodded and smiled to the Count—but the translation was a false move. It would have been better to have let Barbara blunder along with French; once he started interpreting for her the barrier of language was raised far higher, and he was put into the position of intermediary between his wife and his friends, tending to keep her at a distance.

“You are enjoying life in Paris, madame?” asked Marie.

“Very much, thank you,” said Barbara.

It seemed to Hornblower as if the two women did not like each other. He plunged into a mention of the possibility of Barbara’s going to Vienna; Marie listened apparently in rapture at Barbara’s good fortune. Conversation became formal and stilted; Hornblower refused to allow himself to decide that this was a result of Barbara’s entry into it, and yet the conclusion formed in his inner consciousness. He wanted to chatter free and unrestrained with Marie and the Count, and somehow it could not be done with Barbara standing by. Relief actually mingled with his regret when the surge of people round them and the approach of their host meant that their group would have to break up. They exchanged addresses; they promised to call on each other, if Barbara’s probable departure for Vienna left her time enough. There was a soul-searing glimpse of sadness in Marie’s eyes as he bowed to her.

In the carriage again, going back to their hotel, Hornblower felt a curious little glow of virtue over the fact that he had suggested that Barbara should go to Vienna without him before they had met the Graçays. Why he should derive any comfort from that knowledge was more than he could possibly imagine, but he hugged the knowledge to him. He sat in his dressing-gown talking to Barbara while Hebe went through the elaborate processes of undressing her and making her hair ready for the night.

“When you first told me about Arthur’s suggestion, my dear,” he said, “I hardly realised all that it implied. I am so delighted. You will be England’s first lady. And very properly, too.”

“You do not wish to accompany me?” said Barbara.

“I think you would be happier without me,” said Hornblower with perfect honesty. Somehow he would spoil her pleasure, he knew, if he had to endure a succession of balls and ballets in Vienna.

“And you?” asked Barbara. “You will be happy at Smallbridge, you think?”

“As happy as I ever can be without you, dear,” said Hornblower, and he meant it.

So far not a word about the Graçays had passed between them. Barbara was commendably free from the vulgar habit which had distressed him so much in his first wife of talking over the people they had just met. They were in bed together, her hands in his, before she mentioned them, and then it was suddenly, with no preliminary fencing, and very much not à propos.

“Your friends the Graçays are very charming,” she said.

“Are they not all that I told you about them?” said Hornblower, immensely relieved that in telling Barbara of his adventures he had made no attempt to skirt round that particular episode, even though he had not told her all—by no means all. Then a little clumsily he went on. “The Count is one of the most delightful and sweetest-natured men who ever walked.”

“She is beautiful,” said Barbara, pursuing undeflected her own train of thought. “Those eyes, that complexion, that hair. So often women with reddish hair and brown eyes have poor complexions.”

“Hers is perfect,” said Hornblower—it seemed the best thing to do to agree.

“Why has she not married again?” wondered Barbara. “She must have been married very young, and she has been a widow for some years, you say?”

“Since Aspern,” he explained. “In 1809. One son was killed at Austerlitz, one died in Spain, and her husband, Marcel, at Aspern.”

“Nearly six years ago” said Barbara.

Hornblower tried to explain; how Marie was not of blue blood herself, how whatever fortune she had would certainly revert to the Graçays on her remarriage, how their retired life gave her small chance of meeting possible husbands.

“They will be moving much in good society now,” commented Barbara, thoughtfully. And some time afterwards, à propos of nothing, she added, “Her mouth is too wide.”

Later that night, with Barbara breathing quietly beside him, Hornblower thought over what Barbara had said. He did not like to think about Marie’s remarriage, which was perfectly ridiculous of him. He would almost never see her again. He might call once, before he returned to England, but that would be all. Soon he would be back in Smallbridge, in his own house, with Richard, and with English servants to wait on him. Life in future might be dull and safe, but it would be happy. Barbara would not be in Vienna for always. With his wife and his son he would lead a sane, orderly, and useful life. That was a good resolution on which to close his eyes and compose himself to sleep.