In the carriage again, going back to their hotel, Hornblower felt a curious little glow of virtue over the fact that he had suggested that Barbara should go to Vienna without him before they had met the Graçays. Why he should derive any comfort from that knowledge was more than he could possibly imagine, but he hugged the knowledge to him. He sat in his dressing-gown talking to Barbara while Hebe went through the elaborate processes of undressing her and making her hair ready for the night.
“When you first told me about Arthur’s suggestion, my dear,” he said, “I hardly realised all that it implied. I am so delighted. You will be England’s first lady. And very properly, too.”
“You do not wish to accompany me?” said Barbara.
“I think you would be happier without me,” said Hornblower with perfect honesty. Somehow he would spoil her pleasure, he knew, if he had to endure a succession of balls and ballets in Vienna.
“And you?” asked Barbara. “You will be happy at Smallbridge, you think?”
“As happy as I ever can be without you, dear,” said Hornblower, and he meant it.
So far not a word about the Graçays had passed between them. Barbara was commendably free from the vulgar habit which had distressed him so much in his first wife of talking over the people they had just met. They were in bed together, her hands in his, before she mentioned them, and then it was suddenly, with no preliminary fencing, and very much not à propos.
“Your friends the Graçays are very charming,” she said.
“Are they not all that I told you about them?” said Hornblower, immensely relieved that in telling Barbara of his adventures he had made no attempt to skirt round that particular episode, even though he had not told her all — by no means all. Then a little clumsily he went on. “The Count is one of the most delightful and sweetest-natured men who ever walked.”
“She is beautiful,” said Barbara, pursuing undeflected her own train of thought. “Those eyes, that complexion, that hair. So often women with reddish hair and brown eyes have poor complexions.”
“Hers is perfect,” said Hornblower — it seemed the best thing to do to agree.
“Why has she not married again?” wondered Barbara. “She must have been married very young, and she has been a widow for some years, you say?”
“Since Aspern,” he explained. “In 1809. One son was killed at Austerlitz, one died in Spain, and her husband, Marcel, at Aspern.”
“Nearly six years ago” said Barbara.
Hornblower tried to explain; how Marie was not of blue blood herself, how whatever fortune she had would certainly revert to the Graçays on her remarriage, how their retired life gave her small chance of meeting possible husbands.
“They will be moving much in good society now,” commented Barbara, thoughtfully. And some time afterwards, à propos of nothing, she added, “Her mouth is too wide.”
Later that night, with Barbara breathing quietly beside him, Hornblower thought over what Barbara had said. He did not like to think about Marie’s remarriage, which was perfectly ridiculous of him. He would almost never see her again. He might call once, before he returned to England, but that would be all. Soon he would be back in Smallbridge, in his own house, with Richard, and with English servants to wait on him. Life in future might be dull and safe, but it would be happy. Barbara would not be in Vienna for always. With his wife and his son he would lead a sane, orderly, and useful life. That was a good resolution on which to close his eyes and compose himself to sleep.
CHAPTER XVII
Two months later saw Hornblower sitting in a chaise driving along through France towards Nevers and the Château of Graçay. The Congress of Vienna was still sitting, or dancing — someone had just made the remark that the Congress danced but made no progress — and Barbara was still entertaining. Little Richard spent his mornings in the schoolroom now, and there was nothing for an active man to do in Smallbridge except feel lonely. Temptation had crept up on him like an assassin. Six weeks of mooning round the house had been enough for him; six weeks of an English winter of rain and cloud, six weeks of being hovered over by butler and housekeeper and governess, six weeks of desultory riding through the lanes and of enduring the company of his bucolic neighbours. As a captain he had been a lonely man and yet a busy one, a very different thing from being a lonely man with nothing to do. Even going round to parties in Paris had been better than this.