“You look well, my dear,” she said.
“So do you!”
Her cheeks were golden with sunburn after a month at sea; Barbara never strove after the fashionable creaminess that distinguished the lady of leisure from the milkmaid or the goose-girl. And they laughed in each other’s faces out of sheer happiness before they kissed again and then eventually drew apart.
“Dear, this is Captain Knyvett, who has looked after me so kindly on the voyage.”
“Welcome aboard, My Lord.” Knyvett was short and stocky and grizzled. “But I fancy you’ll not be staying with us long today.”
“We’ll both be your passengers when you sail again,” said Barbara.
“If my relief has come,” said Hornblower, adding to Barbara, “Triton hasn’t arrived yet.”
“‘Twill be two full weeks before we’re ready to sail again, My Lord,” said Knyvett. “I trust we shall have the pleasure of your company and her Ladyship’s.”
“I sincerely hope so,” said Hornblower. “Meanwhile we’ll leave you now — I hope you’ll dine at Admiralty House as soon as you have leisure. Can you get down into the barge, my dear?”
“Of course,” said Barbara.
“Gerard, you’ll stay on board and look after Her Ladyship’s baggage.”
“Aye aye, My Lord.”
“No time even to say how d’ye do to you, Mr Gerard,” said Barbara, as Hornblower led her away to the main chains.
Barbara had no hoops in her skirts; she knew enough about shipboard breezes to dispense with those. Hornblower dropped down into the stern-sheets of the barge, and a growl from the coxswain at the tiller turned the eyes of the boat’s crew to seaward so that they would see nothing they should not see, while Knyvett and Gerard swung Barbara down into Hornblower’s arms in a flurry of petticoats.
“Give way!”
The barge surged away from the ship’s side, over the blue water, towards the Admiralty House pier, with Barbara and Hornblower hand in hand in the stern-sheets.
“Delightful, dear,” said Barbara, looking about her when she landed. “A Commander-in-Chief’s life is spent in pleasant places.”
Pleasant enough, thought Hornblower, except for yellow fever and pirates and international crises and temperamental marines awaiting trial, but this was not the time to mention such things. Evans, hobbling on his wooden leg, was at the pier to greet them, and Hornblower could see that he was Barbara’s slave from the first moment that he was presented to her.
“You must take me round the gardens the first moment I’m free,” said Barbara.
“Yes, Your Ladyship. Of course, Your Ladyship.”
They walked slowly up to the house; here it was a delicate business to show Barbara round and to present the staff to her, for Admiralty House was run along lines laid down at the Admiralty; to alter a stick of furniture or to change the status of any of the naval ratings working there was something Barbara would not be able to do. She was only a tolerated visitor there, and barely tolerated at that. She would certainly itch to change the furniture about and to reorganise the staff, but she was doomed to frustration.
“It seems to be as well, darling,” said Barbara with a twinkle, “that my stay here is to be short. How short?”
“Until Ransome arrives in Triton,” answered Hornblower.
“You should know that, dear, considering how much gossip you picked up from Lady Exmouth and the others.”
“Yes, but it’s still confusing to me. When does your appointment end?”
“It ended yesterday, legally. But my command continues until I am legally relieved of it by Ransome when he comes. Triton has made a long passage.”
“And when Ransome comes?”
“He takes over from me, and, of course, moves into this house. His Excellency has invited us to be his guests at Government House until we sail for home, dear.”
“I see. And if Ransome is so late that we miss the packet?”
“Then we wait for the next. I hope not. It would be uncomfortable.”
“Is Government House as bad as that?”
“It’s tolerable, dear. But I was thinking of Ransome. No new Commander-in-Chief wants to have his predecessor staying on.”
“Criticising all his actions, of course. Is that what you’d do, dear?”
“I wouldn’t be human if I did not.”
“And I know so well you’re human, dear,” said Barbara, putting out her hands to him. They were in the bedroom now, out of sight of servants and staff, and they could be human for a few precious moments until a thunderous knock at the door heralded the arrival of Gerard and the baggage, and on his heels came Spendlove with a note for Barbara.
“A note of welcome from Her Excellency, dear,” explained Barbara when she had read it. “We are commanded to dinner en famille.”
“No more than I expected,” said Hornblower, and then, looking round to see that Spendlove had withdrawn, “no more than I feared.”
Barbara smiled into his eyes conspiratorially.
“A time will come,” she said.
There was so much to talk about, so much news to be exchanged; the long, long letters that had passed between them during their three years’ separation needed amplification and explanation, and in any case, Barbara had been five weeks at sea without news. Late on the second day, while they were dining alone together, a mention of Hudnutt came into the conversation. Hornblower explained the situation briefly.
“You’re going to court martial him?” asked Barbara.
“Likely enough, when I can convene a court.”
“And what will the verdict be?”
“Guilty, of course. There’s no doubt about it.”
“I don’t mean the verdict. I mean the sentence. What will that be?” Barbara was entitled to ask questions like this, and even to express an opinion regarding her husband’s performance of his official duties, now that he had let slip a mention of the subject to her.
Hornblower quoted from the Articles of War which had regulated his official life for nearly thirty years.
“Every person so offending, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death, or such less punishment as from the nature and degree of the offence the court martial shall deem him to deserve.”
“You don’t mean that, dear?” Barbara’s grey eyes opened wide across the little table from him. “Death? But you said ‘such less punishment’. What could that be?”
“Flogging round the fleet. Five hundred lashes.”
“Five hundred lashes? For playing B natural instead of B flat?”’
That was exactly what one might expect a woman to say.
“Dear, that’s not the charge. The charge is wilful disobedience to orders.”
“But it’s such a trifling matter.”
“Dear, disobedience to orders can never be a trifling matter.”
“Would you flog a man to death because he won’t play a B flat? What a bloodthirsty way to balance the account!”
“There’s no thought of balancing accounts, dear. Punishment is inflicted to deter other men from disobeying orders. It’s not revenge.”
But woman-like Barbara clung to her position, however much her flank might be turned by cold logic.
“But if you hang him — or if you flog him, I expect — he’ll never play another B natural again. What good does that do?”
“It’s the good of the Service, dear —”
Hornblower, on his part, was holding a position which he knew to be not quite tenable, but Barbara’s vehemence was causing him to grow heated in defence of his beloved Service.
“They’ll hear about this in England,” said Barbara, and then a new thought struck her. “He can appeal, of course — can he?”