This was happiness again, fleeting, transient, to have his lithe son tottering towards him with a beaming smile.
“Come to Daddy,” said Hornblower, hands outstretched.
Then the smile would turn to a mischievous grin, and down on his hands and knees went young Horatio, galloping like lightning across the room, and gurgling with delirious joy when his father came running after him to seize him and swing him into the air. Simple and delightful pleasure; and then as Hornblower held the kicking gurgling baby up at arm’s length he had a fleeting recollection of the moment when he himself had hung suspended in the mizzen rigging on that occasion when the Indefatigable’s mizzen mast fell when he was in command of the top. This child would know peril and danger — and fear; in later years. He would not let the thought cloud his happiness. He lowered the baby down and then held him at arm’s length again — a most successful performance, judging by the gurgles it elicited.
The landlady came in, knocking at the door.
“That’s a big man,” she said, and Hornblower forced himself not to feel self‑conscious at being caught enjoying the company of his own child.
“Dunno what come over me, sir,” went on the landlady. “I clear forgot to ask if you wanted supper.”
“Supper?” said Hornblower. The last time he had eaten was in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.
“Ham an’ eggs?” asked the landlady. “A bite o’ cold beef?”
“Both, if you please,” said Hornblower.
“Three shakes of a duck’s tail an’ you’ll have ’em,” said the landlady. “You keep that young feller busy while I get it.”
“I ought to go back to Mrs. Hornblower.”
“She’ll do for another ten minutes without you,” said the landlady, briskly.
The smell of bacon and eggs when they came was heavenly. Hornblower could sit down with appetite while Emily bore little Horatio off to bed. And after bacon and eggs, cold beef and pickled onions, and a flagon of beer — another simple pleasure, that of eating his fill and more, the knowledge that he was eating too much serving as a sauce to him who kept himself almost invariably within bounds and who looked upon overindulgence usually with suspicion and contempt. With his duty carried out successfully today he had for once no care for the morrow, not even when the day after tomorrow would see him engaged in the rather frightening experience of attending the King’s levee. And Maria had come safely through her ordeal, and he had a little daughter who would be as adorable as his little son. Then he sneezed three times running.
Chapter VI
“Whitehall Steps,” said Hornblower, stepping down into his gig at Deptford Hard.
It was convenient having his gig for use here; it was faster than a wherryman’s boat and it cost him nothing.
“Give way!” said the coxswain.
Of course it was raining. The westerly wind still blew and bore with it today flurries of heavy rain, which hissed down on the surface of the river, roared on the tarpaulins of the wretched boat’s crew, and rattled loudly on the sou’wester which Hornblower wore on his head while he sheltered his cocked hat under his boat cloak. He sniffed lamentably. He had the worst cold he had ever experienced, and he needed to use his handkerchief. But that meant bringing a hand out from under his cloak, and he would not do that — with the boat cloak spread round him like a tent as he sat in the stern‑sheets, and with the sou’wester on top, he could hope to keep himself reasonably dry as far as Whitehall if he did not disturb the arrangement. He preferred to sniff.
Up the river, through the rain; under London Bridge, round the bends he had come to know so well during the last few days. He cowered in misery under his boat cloak, shuddering. He was sure he had never felt so ill in his life before. He ought to be in bed, with hot bricks at his feet and hot rum‑and‑water at his side, but on the day when the First Lord was going to take him to the Court of St. James’s he could not possibly plead illness, not even though the shivers ran up and down his spine and his legs felt too weak to carry him.