The stranger came to polite attention in the presence of a lady.
“May I have the honour of presenting my wife to Your Highness?” asked Hornblower.
The stranger made a low bow, and, advancing, took Barbara’s hand and stooped low over it again to kiss it. Hornblower watched with some little annoyance. Barbara was woman enough to be susceptible to a kiss on the hand — any rascal could find his way into her good graces if he could perform that outlandish ceremony in the right way.
“The beautiful Lady Hornblower,” said the stranger. “Wife of the most distinguished sailor in Her Majesty’s Navy, sister of the great Duke — but best known as the beautiful Lady Hornblower.”
This madman had a way with him, as well as being well informed. But the speech was thoroughly out of character, of course; Napoleon had always been notorious for his brusquerie with women, and had been said to limit his conversation with them to questions about the number of their children. But it would never occur to Barbara to think like that when such a speech had just been made to her. She turned an inquiring blue eye on her husband.
“His Highness —” began Hornblower.
He played the farce out to the end, recounting the stranger’s request and laying stress on the importance of his arrival in Paris.
“You have already ordered the carriage, I suppose, Horatio?” asked Barbara.
“As a matter of fact I haven’t yet.”
“Then of course you will. Every minute is of importance, as His Highness says.”
“You are too kind, my dear lady,” said His Highness.
“But —” began Hornblower, and he said no more under the gaze of that blue eye. He walked across and pulled at the bell cord, and when Brown appeared he gave the necessary instructions.
“Tell Harris he can have five minutes to put the horses to. Not a second longer,” supplemented Barbara.
“Yes, my lady.”
“My lady, my lord,” said the stranger as Brown withdrew. “All Europe will be in your debt for this act of kindness. The world is notoriously ungrateful, but I hope the gratitude of Bonaparte will be unmistakable.”
“Your Highness is too kind,” said Hornblower, trying not to be too sarcastic.
“I hope Your Highness has a pleasant journey,” said Barbara, “and a successful one.”
The fellow had won every bit of Barbara’s esteem, obviously. She ignored her husband’s indignant glances until Brown announced the carriage and the stranger had rolled away into the deluging rain.
“But my dear —” protested Hornblower at last. “What on earth did you do that for?”
“It’ll do Harris no harm to drive to Maidstone and back,” said Barbara. “The horses are never exercised enough in any case.”
“But the man was mad,” said Hornblower. “A raving lunatic. A stark, staring, idiotic impostor, and not a very good impostor at that.”
“I think there was something about him,” said Barbara, sticking to her guns. “Something —”
“You mean he kissed your hand and made pretty speeches,” said Hornblower in a huff.
It was not until six days later that The Times published a dispatch from Paris.
Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the Pretender to the Imperial Throne, was today nominated as a candidate in the elections about to be held for the Presidency of the French Republic.
And it was not until a month after that that a liveried servant delivered a packet and a letter at Smallbridge. The letter was in French, but Hornblower had no difficulty in translating it —
My Lord
I am commanded by Monseigneur His Highness the Prince-President, as one of his first acts on assuming the control of the affairs of his people, to convey to you His Highness’s gratitude for the assistance you were kind enough to render him during his journey to Paris. Accompanying this letter Your Lordship will find the insignia of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and I have the pleasure of assuring Your Lordship that at His Highness’ command I am requesting of Her Majesty the Queen, through Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, permission for you to accept them.
I am also commanded by His Highness to beg that you will convey to Her Ladyship your wife his grateful thanks as well, and that you will present for her acceptance the accompanying token of his esteem and regard, which His Highness hopes will be a fitting tribute to the beautiful eyes which His Highness remembers so well.
With the highest expressions of my personal regard,
I am,
Your most humble and obedient servant
Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“Humbug!” said Hornblower. “The fellow will be calling himself Emperor before you can say Jack Robinson. Napoleon the Third, I suppose.”
“I said there was something about him,” said Barbara. “This is a very beautiful sapphire.”
It certainly matched the eyes into which Hornblower smiled with tender resignation.
Table of Contents
Hornblower and the Widow McCool
The Point and the Edge
The Last Encounter