Hornblower and the Crisis, Forester, S. [ebook reader ink .TXT] 📗

way they used to discuss Tom Cribb and Jem Belcher.”

“Indeed, sir? I fear I know nothing about any of them.”

Tom Cribb and Jem Belcher were disputing the heavyweight championship of England at this period.

“Just as well.”

“Ready, sir,” said the flag lieutenant, handing the sealed letter to Hornblower, who held it for an embarrassed second before putting it in his pocket — it seemed rather cavalier treatment for a dispatch to the Secretary of the Admiralty.

“Goodbye captain,” said Foster, “and a pleasant journey.”

“I've had your baggage put in the chaise, sir,” said the flag lieutenant on the way to the gate.

“Thank you,” said Hornblower.

Outside the gate there was the usual small crowd of labourers waiting to be hired, of anxious wives, and of mere sightseers. Their attention was at this moment taken up by the post chaise which stood waiting with the postilion at the horses' heads.

“Well, goodbye, sir, and a pleasant journey,” said the flag lieutenant, handing over the blanket bundle.

From outside the gate came a well remembered voice.

“Horry! Horry!”

Maria in bonnet and shawl stood there by the wicket gate, with little Horatio in her arms.

“That's my wife and my child,” said Hornblower abruptly. “Goodbye, sir.”

He strode out through the gate and found himself clasping Maria and the child in the same embrace.

“Horry, darling. My precious,” said Maria. “You're back again. Here's your son — look how he's growing up. He runs about all day long. There, smile at your daddy, poppet.”

Little Horatio did indeed smile, for a fleeting instant, before hiding his face in Maria's bosom.

“He looks well indeed,” said Hornblower. “And how about you, my dear?”

He stood back to look her over. There was no visible sign at present of her pregnancy, except perhaps in the expression in her face.

“To see you is to give me new life, my loved one,” said Maria.

It was painful to realize that what she said was so close to the truth. And it was horribly painful to know that he had next to tell her that he was leaving her in this very moment of meeting.

Already, and inevitably, Maria had put out her right hand to twitch at his coat, while holding little Horatio in her left arm.

“Your clothes look poorly, Horry darling,” she said. “How crumpled this coat is. I'd like to get at it with an iron.”

“My dear —” said Hornblower.

This was the moment to break the news, but Maria anticipated him.

“I know,” she said, quickly. “I saw your chest and bag being put into the chaise. You're going away.”

“I fear so.”

“To London?”

“Yes.”

“Not one little moment with me — with us?”

“I fear not, my dear.”

Maria was being very brave. She held her head back and looked straight at him unflinchingly; there was jus the tiniest quiver of her lips to indicate the stresses within.

“And after that, darling?” asked Maria; when she spoke her tone gave a further hint of those stresses.

“I hope to get a ship. I shall be a captain, remember dear.”

“Yes.” Just the one word, of heartbroken acquiescence.

Perhaps it was fortunate then that Maria noticed something that distracted her, but Hornblower was inclined to believe that Maria deliberately and bravely distracted herself. She lifted her hand to his cheek, to his jawbone, below his left ear.

“What's this?” she asked. “It looks like paint. Black paint. You haven't looked after yourself very well, dear.”

“Very likely it's paint,” agreed Hornblower.

He had repressed the almost automatic reaction to draw back from a public caress, before he realized what it was that Maria had observed. Now there was a flood of recollection. The night before last he had stormed on to the deck of the Guèpe with a gang of yelling madmen with blackened faces. He had heard a cutlass blade crunch on bone, he had heard screams for mercy, he had seen nine pounds of canister fired down into a crowded 'tweendecks. Only the night before last, and here was Maria, simple and innocent and ignorant, and his child, and the staring onlookers, in the English sunshine. It was only a step out of one world into another, but it was a step infinitely long, over a bottomless chasm.

“Horry, darling?” said Maria, inquiringly, and broke the spell.

She was looking at him anxiously, studying him and frightened by what she saw; he felt he must have been scowling, even snarling, as his expression revealed the emotions he was re experiencing. It was time to smile.

“It wasn't easy to clean up in Princess,” he said. It had been hard to apply turpentine to his face before a mirror in the leaping waterhoy with the wind on the quarter.

“You must do it as soon as ever you can,” said Maria. She was scrubbing at his jaw with her handkerchief. “It won't come off for me.”

“Yes, dear.”

He realized that what had been a death's head grin was softening into something more natural, and this was the moment, with reassurance restored to Maria's face, to tear himself from her.

“And now goodbye, dear,” he said gently.

“Yes, dear.”

She had learned her lesson well during half a dozen farewells since their marriage. She knew that her incomprehensible husband disliked any show of emotion even in private, and disliked it twenty times as much with a third party present. She had learned that he had moments of withdrawal which she should not resent because he was sorry for them afterwards. And above all that she had learned that she weighed in the scale nothing, nothing at all, against his duty. She knew that if she were to pit herself and her child against this it would only end in a terrible hurt which she could not risk because it would hurt him as much or more.

It was only a few steps to the waiting chaise; he took note that his sea chest and ditty bag were under the seat on which he put his precious bundle, and turned back to his wife and child.

“Goodbye, son,” he said. Once more he was rewarded with a smile instantly concealed. “Goodbye my dear. I shall write to you, of course.”

She