“And you?” asked the Vicomtesse. “Have you a wife in England? Children?”
“I have a wife,” said Hornblower.
Even without the handicap of a foreign language it was difficult to describe Maria to a stranger; he said that she was short and dark, and he said no more. Her red hands and dumpy figure, her loyalty to him which cloyed when it did not irritate — he could not venture on a fuller description lest he should betray the fact that he did not love her, and he had never betrayed it yet.
“So that you have no children either?” asked the Vicomtesse again.
“Not now,” said Hornblower.
This was torment. He told of how little Horatio and little Maria had died of smallpox in a Southsea lodging, and then with a gulp he went on to say that there was another child due to be born in January next.
“Let us hope you will be home with your wife then,” said the Vicomtesse. “To-day you will be able to discuss plans of escape with my father-in-law.”
As if this new mention of his name had summoned him, the Count came into the room on the tail of this sentence.
“Forgive my interrupting you,” he said, even while he returned Hornblower’s bow, “but from my study window I have just seen a gendarme approaching this house from a group which was riding along the river bank. Would it be troubling you too much, Captain, to ask you to go into Monsieur Bush’s room for a time? I shall send your servant in to you, too, and perhaps then you would be good enough to lock the door. I shall interview the gendarme myself, and you will only be detained for a few minutes, I hope.”
A gendarme! Hornblower was out of the room and was crossing over to Bush’s door before this long speech was finished, while M. de Graçay escorted him thither, unruffled, polite, his words unhurried. Bush was sitting up in bed as Hornblower entered, but what he began to say was broken off by Hornblower’s abrupt gesture demanding silence. A moment later Brown tapped at the door and was admitted, Hornblower carefully locking the door after him.
“What is it, sir?” whispered Bush, and Hornblower whispered an explanation, still standing with his hand on the handle, stooping to listen.
He heard a knocking on the outer door, and the rattling of chains as Felix went to open it. Feverishly he tried to hear the ensuing conversation, but he could not understand it. But the gendarme was speaking with respect, and Felix in the flat passionless tones of the perfect butler. He heard the tramp of booted feet and the ring of spurs as the gendarme was led into the hall, and then all the sounds died away with the closing of a door upon them. The minutes seemed like hours as he waited. Growing aware of his nervousness he forced himself to turn and smile at the others as they sat with their ears cocked, listening.
The wait was too long for them to preserve their tension; soon they relaxed, and grinned at each other, not with hollow mirth as Hornblower’s had been at the start. At last a renewed burst of sound from the hall keyed them up again, and they stayed rigid listening to the penetrating voices. And then they heard the clash of the outside door shutting, and the voices ceased. Still it was a long time before anything more happened — five minutes — ten minutes, and then a tap on the door startled them as though it were a pistol shot.
“Can I come in, Captain?” said the Count’s voice.
Hurriedly Hornblower unlocked the door to admit him, and even then he had to stand and wait in feverish patience, translating awkwardly while the Count apologized to Bush for intruding upon him, and made polite inquiries about his health and whether he slept well.
“Tell him I slept nicely, if you please, sir,” said Bush.
“I am delighted to hear it,” said the Count. “Now in the matter of this gendarme —”
Hornblower brought forward a chair for him. He would not allow it to be thought that his impatience overrode his good manners.