“The captain’s here, ma’am,” he said.
“Yes,” said the lady. “Please have my baggage brought up while I speak to him.”
Hornblower was conscious of an internal struggle. He disliked the aristocracy — it hurt him nowadays to remember that as the doctor’s son he had had to touch his cap to the squire. He felt unhappy and awkward in the presence of the self-confident arrogance of blue blood and wealth. It irritated him to think that if he offended this woman he might forfeit his career. Not even his gold lace nor his presentation sword gave him confidence as she approached him. He took refuge in an icy formality.
“Are you the captain of this ship, sir?” she asked, as she came up. Her eyes looked boldly and frankly into his with no trace of downcast modesty.
“Captain Hornblower, at your service, ma’am,” he replied, with a stiff jerk of his neck which might charitably be thought a bow.
“Lady Barbara Wellesley,” was the reply, accompanied by a curtsy only just deep enough to keep the interview formal. “I wrote you a note, Captain Hornblower, requesting a passage to England. I trust that you received it.”
“I did, ma’am. But I do not think it is wise for your ladyship to join this ship.”
The unhappy double mention of the word ‘ship’ in this sentence did nothing to make Hornblower feel less awkward.
“Please tell me why, sir.”
“Because, ma’am, we shall be clearing shortly to seek out an enemy and fight him. And after that, ma’am, we shall have to return to England round Cape Horn. Your ladyship would be well advised to make your way across the Isthmus. From Porto Bello you can easily reach Jamaica and engage a berth in the West India packet which is accustomed to female passengers.”
Lady Barbara’s eyebrows arched themselves higher.
“In my letter,” she said, “I informed you that there was yellow fever in Porto Bello. A thousand persons died there of it last week. It was on the outbreak of the disease that I removed from Porto Bello to Panama. At any day it may appear here as well.”
“May I ask why your ladyship was in Porto Bello, then?”
“Because, sir, the West India packet in which I was a female passenger was captured by a Spanish privateer and brought there. I regret, sir, that I cannot tell you the name of my grandmother’s cook, but I shall be glad to answer any further questions which a gentleman of breeding would ask.”
Hornblower winced and then to his annoyance found himself blushing furiously. His dislike for arrogant blue blood was if anything intensified. But there was no denying that the woman’s explanations were satisfactory enough — a visit to the West Indies could be made by any woman without unsexing herself, and she had clearly come to Porto Bello and Panama against her will. He was far more inclined now to grant her request — in fact he was about to do so, having strangely quite forgotten the approaching duel with the Natividad and the voyage round the Horn. He recalled them just as he was about to speak, so that he changed at a moment’s notice what he was going to say and stammered and stuttered in consequence.
“B-but we are going out in this ship to fight,” he said. “Natividad’s got twice our force. It will be d-dangerous.”
Lady Barbara laughed at that — Hornblower noted the pleasing colour contrast between her white teeth and her golden sunburn; his own teeth were stained and ugly.
“I would far rather,” she said, “be on board your ship, whomsoever you have got to fight, than be in Panama with the vomita negro.”
“But Cape Horn, ma’am?”
“I have no knowledge of this Cape Horn of yours. But I have twice rounded the Cape of Good Hope during my brother’s Governor-Generalship, and I assure you, captain, I have never yet been seasick.”
Still Hornblower stammered and hesitated. He resented the presence of a woman on board his ship. Lady Barbara exactly voiced his thoughts — and as she did so her arched eyebrows came close together in a fashion oddly reminiscent of el Supremo although her eyes still laughed straight into his.