The men exchanged bows.
“May I present you to my daughter-in-law? Madame la Vicomtesse de Graçay.”
“Your servant, ma’am,” said Hornblower, bowing again, and then felt like a graceless lout because the English formula had risen to his lips by the instinct the action prompted. He hurriedly racked his brains for the French equivalent, and ended in a shamefaced mumble of “Enchanté.”
The Vicomtesse had black eyes in the maddest contrast with her nearly auburn hair. She was stoutly — one might almost say stockily — built, and was somewhere near thirty years of age, dressed in black silk which left sturdy white shoulders exposed. As she curtseyed her eyes met his in complete friendliness.
“And what is the name of the wounded gentleman whom we have the honour of entertaining?” she asked; even to Hornblower’s unaccustomed ear her French had a different quality from the Count’s.
“Bush,” said Hornblower, grasping the import of the question with an effort. “First Lieutenant of my ship. I have left my servant, Brown, in the kitchen.”
“Felix will see that he is comfortable,” interposed the Count. “What of yourself, Captain? Some food? A glass of wine?”
“Nothing, thank you,” said Hornblower. He felt in no need of food in this mad world, although he had not eaten since noon.
“Nothing, despite the fatigues of your journey?” There could hardly be a more delicate allusion than that to Hornblower’s recent arrival through the snow, drenched and battered.
“Nothing, thank you,” repeated Hornblower. “Will you not sit down, Captain?” asked the Vicomtesse. They all three found themselves chairs.
“You will pardon us, I hope,” said the Count, “if we continue to speak French. It is ten years since I last had occasion to speak English, and even then I was a poor scholar, while my daughter-in-law speaks none.”
“Bush,” said the Vicomtesse. “Brown. I can say those names. But your name, Captain, is difficult. Orrenblor — I cannot say it.”
“Bush! Orrenblor!” exclaimed the Count, as though reminded of something. “I suppose you are aware, Captain, of what the French newspapers have been saying about you recently?”
“No,” said Hornblower. “I should like to know, very much.”
“Pardon me, then.”
The Count took up a candle and disappeared through a door; he returned quickly enough to save Hornblower from feeling too self-conscious in the silence that ensued.
“Here are recent copies of the Moniteur,” said the Count. “I must apologize in advance, Captain, for the statements made in them.”
He passed the newspapers over to Hornblower, indicating various columns in them. The first one briefly announced that a dispatch by semaphore just received from Perpignan informed the Ministry of Marine that an English ship of the line had been captured at Rosas. The next was the amplification. It proclaimed in triumphant detail that the hundred gun ship Sutherland which had been committing acts of piracy in the Mediterranean had met a well-deserved fate at the hands of the Toulon fleet directed by Admiral Cosmao. She had been caught unawares and overwhelmed, and had ‘pusillanimously hauled down the colours of perfidious Albion under which she had committed so many dastardly crimes.’ The French public was assured that her resistance had been of the poorest, it being advanced in corroboration that only one French ship had lost a topmast during the cannonade. The action took place under the eyes of thousands of the Spanish populace, and would be a salutory lesson to those few among them who, deluded by English lies or seduced by English gold, still cherished notions of resistance to their lawful sovereign King Joseph.
Another article announced that the infamous Captain Hornblower and his equally wicked lieutenant Bush had surrendered in the Sutherland, the latter being one of the few wounded in the encounter. All those peace-loving French citizens who had suffered as a result of their piratical depredations could rest assured that a military court would inquire immediately into the crimes these two had committed. Too long had the modern Carthage sent forth her minions to execute her vile plans with impunity! Their guilt would soon be demonstrated to a world which would readily discriminate between the truth and the vile lies which the poisoned pens in Canning’s pay so persistently poured forth.