Glancing automatically at his desk, Hornblower caught sight of Quiot’s letter lying there where he had left it, with its beautiful handwriting and elaborate signature and paraphe. It reminded him once more that Bush was dead. That sorrow was real, acute, actual; Barbara’s coming had been so unexpected that it was not real to him yet. That fantastic mind of his refused to dwell on the central point that Barbara was once more with him, but flew off at ridiculous tangents. It liked its details well-ordered, and insisted on them; it would not let him sink into simple uxorious happiness, but rather chose to work on the practical details — never thought of until that time — of the arrangement of the life of an officer on active service, who, while locked in a death grapple with an Emperor, yet had a wife to think about. Many-sided Hornblower may have been, but the mainspring of his life was his professional duty. For more than twenty years, for all his adult life, he had been accustomed to sacrifice himself for that, to such an extent and for so long that the sacrifice now was automatic and usually ungrudging. He was so set on his struggle with Bonaparte and had been plunged so deep into it during the last months that he was inclined to resent distractions.
“This way, dear,” he said, at length, a little hoarsely — he was about to clear his throat when he checked himself. The need for throat-clearing was a sure symptom of nervousness and shyness. Barbara had lightly teased him out of it years ago, and he would not clear his throat now, not in front of Barbara, not in front of himself.
They crossed the little ante-room and Hornblower threw open the door into the bedroom, standing aside for Barbara to pass through, and then he entered after her and shut the door. Barbara was standing in the centre of the floor, her back to the foot of the big bed. There was a smile on one side of her mouth; one eyebrow was raised above the other. She raised one hand to unfasten the clasp of her cloak, but let it drop again, its work uncompleted. She did not know whether to laugh or to cry over this incalculable husband of hers; but she was a Wellesley, and pride forbade her to weep. She stiffened herself just one second before Hornblower came forward to her one second too late.
“Dear,” he said, and took her cold hands.
She smiled at him in return, but there could have been more tenderness in her smile, light and playful though it was.
“You are pleased to see me?” she asked; she kept her tone light, and kept her anxiety out of it.
“Of course. Of course, dear.” Hornblower tried to make himself human, fighting down the instinctive impulse to withdraw into himself that was roused when his telepathic sensitivity warned him of danger. “I can hardly believe yet that you are here, dear.”
That was the truth, heartfelt, and to say it was a relief, easing some of his tension. He took her into his arms and they kissed; tears were stinging her eyes when their lips parted again.
“Castlereagh decided the Duchess should come here, just before he left for Allied Headquarters,” she explained. “So I asked if I could come too.”
“I’m glad you did,” said Hornblower.
“Castlereagh calls her the only man in the whole Bourbon family.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if that were true.”
They were warming to each other now; two proud people, learning anew the sacrifice each had to make to admit to the other their mutual need of each other. They kissed again, and Hornblower felt her body relaxing under his hands. Then came a knocking at the door, and they drew apart. It was Brown, supervising the work of a half-dozen seamen dragging in Barbara’s trunks. Hebe, Barbara’s little Negro maid, hovered on the threshold before coming in with the baggage. Barbara walked over to the mirror and began to take off her hat and cloak before it.
“Little Richard,” she said, in a conversational tone, “is very well and happy. He talks unceasingly, and he still digs. His particular corner of the shrubbery looks as if an army of badgers had been at work. In that trunk I have some drawings of his that I kept for you — although one can hardly say they display any noticeable artistic ability.”