“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.”
Chapter 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.