“There is no need for me to reiterate my gratitude, My Lord,” said Spendlove.
This pleading creature, this poor love-lorn fellow, was the Spendlove whose cool daring had risked a leap in the darkness down a sixty-foot precipice. Hornblower remembered Lucy’s lips on his hands, remembered how she had followed him on her knees across the floor. The less he had to do with any of this the better, he decided. But the passion of a child hardly out of the schoolroom for a man of mature years was likely to be fleeting, transient, and the memory of her lost dignity would later be as painful to her as it was to him. She would find need to assert herself, to show him that he was not the only man in the world – and how could she demonstrate that more plainly than by marrying someone else? To use a vulgar phrase, there was quite a chance that Spendlove might catch her on the rebound.
“If good wishes can help,” he said, “you have all mine, Spendlove.”
Even an Admiral had to choose his words with care. Two days later he was announcing his immediate departure to the Governor.
“I’m taking my squadron to sea in the morning, Your Excellency,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to stay for the hangings?” asked Hooper in surprise.
“I fear not,” answered Hornblower, and added an unnecessary explanation. “Hangings don’t agree with me, Your Excellency.”
It was not merely an unnecessary explanation; it was a foolish one, as he knew as soon as he saw the open astonishment in Hooper’s face. Hooper could hardly have been more surprised at hearing that hangings did not agree with Hornblower than he would have been if he had heard that Hornblower did not agree with hangings – and that was very nearly as correct.
THE GUNS OF CARABOBO
She was exactly like a British ship of war; naturally, perhaps, since she had been one most of her life until she was sold out of the service. Now, as she came up into the harbour, she could pass without question for a man-o’-war brig except that she flew the Royal Yacht Squadron burgee instead of a commission pendant. Hornblower put down the telescope through which he had been watching, curiously, her progress into Kingston harbour, and referred again to Barbara’s letter, two months old now, which had arrived a fortnight ago.
My dearest husband (wrote Barbara. She sometimes misused her superlatives; that ‘dearest’, strictly, implied that she had at least three husbands, even though it also implied that Hornblower rated highest of the three).
You are shortly going to have a visitor, a Mr Charles Ramsbottom, a millionaire, who has purchased an old ship of the Navy to use as a yacht, which he has named the Bride of Abydos, and in which he proposes to visit the West Indies. He has only lately made his appearance in society, having inherited his father’s fortune – Bradford wool and army clothing contracts! Yet despite this obscure origin he has succeeded in entering into society, perhaps because he is very young, very charming, unmarried, mildly eccentric, and, as I said, a millionaire. I have met him frequently of late, in very good houses, and I recommend him to you, dearest, if for no other reason than that he has won some small portion of my heart by a delightful mixture of deference and interest which I might have found irresistible were I not married to the most irresistible man in the world. He has, indeed, won golden opinions in society, both on the Government side and with the opposition, and he might become an important factor in politics should he decide to enter into them. I have no doubt that he will bring you introductions from personages even more influential than your loving wife. . . .
Hornblower had to read the letter through to the end, although it contained no further reference to Mr Charles Ramsbottom, but he returned again to the opening paragraph. It was the first time he had ever seen this new word ‘millionaire’, which occurred twice. He disliked it on sight. It was inconceivable that a man should have a million pounds, and presumably not in broad estates but in factories and in stocks and shares, probably with a huge holding in Consols and an immense balance at the bank as well. The existence of millionaires, whether in Society or not, was something as distasteful as the word itself now called into existence. And this one had been charming to Barbara – he was not too sure if that really constituted a recommendation. He picked up the telescope again and watched the brig come to an anchor. The rapidity with which she took in sail showed that she carried a large crew. Hornblower, as a Commander-in-Chief of a squadron and accountable to the niggardly Lords of the Admiralty for every penny expended, knew perfectly well what this sort of thing cost. This Mr Ramsbottom, to indulge himself in his naval toy, was expending enough money to maintain a thousand families in bread and beer and bacon.