Next morning was busier, for there was now the question of clothes to be dealt with. Dressmakers were sent in to Barbara by Her Excellency, so that Hornblower found all the mental exercise he needed in acting as interpreter over matters demanding a vocabulary he did not possess, and shirt-makers and tailors sent in to him by His Excellency. The tailor was somewhat disappointed on being told that Hornblower did not wish him to make a complete uniform for a British Rear Admiral, gold lace and all. As a half-pay officer, with no appointment, Hornblower did not need anything of the sort.
After the tailor came a deputation, the mate and two members of the crew of Pretty Jane.
“We’ve come to enquire after Your Lordship’s health, and Her Ladyship’s,” said the mate.
“Thank you. You can see Her Ladyship and I are quite recovered,” said Hornblower. “And you? Are you being well looked after?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“You’re master of the Pretty Jane now,” commented Hornblower.
“Yes, My Lord.”
It was a strange first command for a man to have.
“What are you going to do with her?”
“I’m having her hauled out today, My Lord. Maybe she can be patched up. But she’ll have lost all her copper.”
“Very likely.”
“I expect I’ll have to sell her for what she’ll fetch, hull and cargo,” said the mate, with a note of bitterness in his voice – that was to be expected in a man who had received his first command only to face losing it instantly.
“I hope you’re lucky,” said Hornblower.
“Thank you, My Lord.” There was a moment’s hesitation before the next words came. “And I have to thank Your Lordship for all you did.”
“The little I did I did for my own sake and Her Ladyship’s,” said Hornblower.
He could smile as he said it; already, in these blissful surroundings, the memory of the howl of the hurricane and the crash of the waves sweeping Pretty Jane’s deck was losing its painful acuteness. And the two seamen could grin back at him. Here in a vice-regal palace it was hard to remember how he had stood, with bared teeth and drawn knife, disputing with them possession of a single green coconut. It was pleasant that the interview could end with smiles and goodwill, so that Hornblower could lapse back into delightful idleness with Barbara beside him.
Seamstresses and tailors must have worked hard and long, for next day some of the results of their efforts were ready to be tried on.
“My Spanish grandee!” said Barbara, eyeing her husband dressed in coat and breeches of Puerto Rican cut.
“My lovely señora,” answered Hornblower with a bow. Barbara was wearing comb and mantilla.
“The señoras of Puerto Rico wear no stays, fortunately,” said Barbara. “I could bear nothing of the sort at present.”
That was one of the few allusions Barbara made regarding the lacerations and bruises that she bore all over her body. She was of a Spartan breed, trained in a school which scorned to admit physical weakness. Even in making her mock-formal curtsey to him as she spoke she was careful to betray none of the pain the movement cost her; Hornblower could hardly guess at it.
“What am I to tell Mendez-Castillo today when he comes to make his enquiries?” asked Hornblower.
“I think, dear, that now we can safely be received by Their Excellencies,” said Barbara.
Here in little Puerto Rico was to be found all the magnificence and ceremonial of the court of Spain. The Captain-General was the representative of a king in whose veins ran the blood of Bourbons and Habsburgs, of Ferdinand and Isabella, and his person had to be surrounded by the same ritual and etiquette, lest the mystic sanctity of his master should be called into question. Even Hornblower did not come to realise, until he began to discuss the arrangements with Mendez-Castillo, the enormous condescension, the extreme strain put upon palace etiquette, involved in the back-stairs visit Their Excellencies had paid to the battered castaways who had claimed their hospitality. Now that was all to be forgotten in their formal reception.
There was amusement to be found in Mendez-Castillo’s apologetic and nervous mentioning of the fact that Hornblower could not expect the same formalities as had welcomed him on his last visit. Then he had been a visiting Commander-in-Chief; now he was only a half-pay officer, a distinguished visitor (Mendez-Castillo hastened to add) but an unofficial one. It dawned upon him that Mendez-Castillo expected him to flare out and to be offended at being told that this time he would be received only by flourishes and not by a full band, by the salutes of the sentries instead of by the turning out of the whole guard. He was able to confirm his reputation for tact by declaring quite truthfully – his candour was mistaken for the most diplomatic concealment of his own feelings – that he did not care in the least.