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

put up her mouth for kissing, but she held herself back from throwing herself into his arms, and she was alert to terminate the kiss at the same moment as he saw fit to withdraw. Hornblower climbed up into the chaise, and sat there, feeling oddly isolated. The postilion mounted and looked back over his shoulder.

“London,” said Hornblower.

The horses moved forward and the small crowd of onlookers raised something like a cheer. Then the hoofs clattered on the cobbles and the chaise swung round the corner, abruptly cutting Maria off out of his sight.

Hornblower and the Crisis

CHAPTER EIGHT

“This'll do,” said Hornblower to the landlady.

“Bring 'em up, 'Arry,” yelled the landlady over her shoulder, and Hornblower heard the heavy feet of the idiot son on the uncarpeted stairs as he carried up his sea chest.

There was a bed and a chair and a wash hand stand; a mirror on the wall; all a man could need. These were the cheap lodgings recommended to him by the last postilion; there had been a certain commotion in the frowsy street when the post chaise had turned into it from the Westminster Bridge Road and had pulled up outside the house — it was not at all the sort of street where post-​chaises could be expected to be seen. The cries of the children outside who had been attracted by the sight could still be heard through the narrow window.

“Anything you want?” asked the landlady.

“Hot water,” said Hornblower.

The landlady looked a little harder at the man who wanted hot water at nine in the morning.

“Or right. I'll get you some,” she said.

Hornblower looked round him at the room; it seemed to his disordered mind that if he were to relax his attention the room would have revolved round him on its own. He sat down in the chair; his backside felt as if it were one big bruise, as if it had been beaten with a club. It would have been far more comfortable to stretch out on the bed, but that he dared not do. He kicked off his shoes and wriggled out of his coat, and became aware that he stank.

“'Ere's your 'ot water,” said the landlady, re-​entering.

“Thank you.”

When the door closed again Hornblower pulled himself wearily to his feet and took off the rest of his clothes. That was better; he had not had them off for three days, and this room was sweltering hot with the June sun blazing down on the roof above. Stupid with fatigue, he more than once had to stop to think what he should do next, as he sought out clean clothing and unrolled his housewife. The face he saw in the mirror was covered with hair on which the dust lay thick and he turned away from it in disgust.

It was a grisly and awkward business to wash himself inch by inch in the wash basin, but it was restorative in some small degree. Everything he had been wearing was infiltrated with dust, which had penetrated everywhere — some had even seeped into his sea chest and pattered out when he lifted out his clothes. With his final pint of hot water he applied himself to shave.

That brought about a decided improvement in his appearance although even now the face that looked out at him from the mirror was drawn very fine and with a pallor that made his tan look as if it were something painted on — that reminded him to look closely at his left jaw. Wear and tear as well as the shave had removed the paint that Maria had noticed. He put on clean clothes — of course they were faintly damp as always when newly come from the sea and would stay so until he could get them washed in fresh water. Now he was ready; he had consumed exactly the hour he had allowed himself. He picked up his bundle of papers and walked stiffly down the stairs.

He was still incredibly stupid with fatigue. During the last hours in the post chaise he had nodded off repeatedly while sitting up and lurching over the rutted roads. To travel post haste had a romantic sound but it was utterly exhausting. When changing horses he had allowed himself sometimes half an hour — ten minutes in which to eat and twenty in which to doze with his head pillowed on his arms resting on the table. Better to be a sea officer than a courier, he decided. He paid his halfpenny toll on the bridge; normally he would have been greatly interested in the river traffic below him, but he could not spare it a glance at present. Then he turned up Whitehall and reached the Admiralty.

Dreadnought Foster had displayed good sense in giving him that note; the doorkeeper eyed him and his bundle with intense suspicion when he first applied himself to him — it was not only cranks and madmen that he had to turn away, but the naval officers who came to pester Their Lordships for employment.

“I have a letter for Mr Marsden from Admiral Foster,” said Hornblower, and was interested to see the doorkeeper's expression soften at once.

“Would you please write a note to that effect on this form, sir?” he asked.

Hornblower wrote 'Bringing a message from Rear-​Admiral Harry Foster' and signed it, along with his boarding house address.

“This way, sir,” said the doorkeeper. Presumably — certainly, indeed — the Admiral commanding at Plymouth would have the right of immediate access, personally or through an emissary, to Their Lordships' Secretary.

The doorkeeper led Hornblower into a waiting room and bustled off with the note and the letter; in the waiting room there were several officers sitting in attitudes of expectancy or impatience or resignation, and Hornblower exchanged formal 'good mornings' with them before sitting down in a corner of the room. It was a wooden chair, unfriendly to his tormented sitting parts, but it had a high back with wings against which it was comfortable to lean.

Somehow Frenchmen had boarded the