“Thank you, sir,” said Hornblower at last, gathering up his notes. “I will begin these preparations at once.”
“Greatly obliged, I’m sure, sir,” said Mr. Pallender, as Hornblower took his leave.
This was an operation as elaborate as Abercrombie’s landing on the Egyptian coast — and in the Mediterranean there were no tides to complicate arrangements. Thirty‑eight boats with their crews and oarsmen; guards of honour; mourners and officials; there would be a thousand officers and men at least under Hornblower’s command. And Hornblower’s heart sank a little when he was able to take one of the barges from the hands of the workmen who were attaching the insignia to it in Deptford Yard, and conduct his own trials with it. It was a vast clumsy vessel, not much smaller and no more manageable then a cargo lighter. Forward in the open bows she pulled twelve oars; from midships aft she was covered with a vast canopy of solid construction, exposing an enormous area to the wind. The barge allotted to the conveyance of the Body (Mr. Pallender had made that capital letter quite obvious in their discussion) was being so covered with plumes that she would catch the wind like a frigate’s mainsail. There must be lusty oarsmen detailed to the task of rowing that barge along — and it would be best to have as nearly as complete a relief available as possibly hidden away under the canopy. But as she would head the procession, with the other boats taking station upon her, he must be careful not to overdo that. He must time everything exactly — up with the flood tide, arriving at Whitehall Steps precisely at slack water so that the complicated manoeuvres there could be carried out with the minimum of risk, and then back with the ebb, dispersing barges and crews along the route as convenient.
“My dear,” said Maria to him, in their bedroom at the “George”. “I fear I have little of your attention at present.”
“Your pardon, dear?” said Hornblower, looking round from the table at which he was writing. He was deep in plans for issuing a solid breakfast to a thousand men who would have small chance of eating again all day.
“I was telling you that I spoke to the midwife today. She seems a worthy woman. She will hold herself free from tomorrow. As she lives only in the next street there is no need for her to take up residence here until the time comes, which is fortunate — you know how little money we have, Horatio.”
“Yes, dear,” said Hornblower. “Have those black breeches of mine been delivered yet?”
It was a perfectly natural step from Maria’s approaching confinement to Hornblower’s black breeches, via the question of money, but Maria resented her husband’s apparent heartlessness.
“Do you care more for your breeches than for your child?” she asked, “— or for me?”
“Dearest,” answered Hornblower. He had to put down his pen and rise from his chair to comfort her. “I have much on my mind. I can’t tell you how much I regret it at this moment.”
This was the very devil. The eyes not only of London but of all England would be on that procession. He would never be forgiven if there was any blunder. But he had to take Maria’s hands in his and reassure her.
“You, my dear,” he said, smiling into her eyes, “are my all in all. There is nothing in my world as important as you are.”
“I wish I could be sure,” said Maria.
He kissed the hands he held.
“What can I say to make you sure?” he asked. “That I love you?”
“That would be pleasant enough,” said Maria.
“I love you, dear,” he said, but he had not had now a smile from her as yet, and he went on, “I love you more dearly even than my new black breeches.”
“Oh!” said Maria.
He had to labour the point to make sure that she understood he was both joking and tender.
“More dearly than a thousand pair of black breeches,” he said. “Could any man say more?”
She was smiling now, and she took her hands from his and laid them on his shoulders.