“Yes, no doubt, dear,” said Barbara, patiently. “But I need some money for other purposes.”
“But it’s a lot of money.”
“I think we can afford it, though. Please, dear —”
“Of course, of course,” said Hornblower hastily. He could not bear it that Barbara should have to plead to him. All he had was hers. It was always a pleasure to him to anticipate her wants, to forestall any request so that it never need be uttered. He felt shame that Barbara, exquisite Barbara, should ever have to abase herself so low as to ask a favour of him, unworthy as he was.
“I’ll write an order on Summers,” he said. “He’s Coutts’s correspondent in Kingston.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Barbara.
Yet as he handed the order over he could not refrain from further speech.
“You’ll be careful, dear, won’t you?” he said. “Two hundred pounds, whether in notes or gold —”
His misgivings ceased to be voiced, died away in incoherent mumblings. He had no wish to pry. He had no wish to exert over Barbara the sort of parental authority that both law and custom gave a husband over his wife. And then he thought of a possible explanation. Lady Hooper was a keen and clever card player. Presumably Barbara had lost heavily to her. Well, in that case he need not worry. Barbara was a good player, too, and level headed, and cool. She would win it back. In any case she was no gambler. Perhaps on the voyage home they would have a few hands of piquet — if Barbara had any fault at all it was a tendency to discard a little thoughtlessly when playing the younger hand, and he could give a little unobtrusive advice. And there was a smug pleasure, and a tender pleasure, in the thought of Barbara not caring to admit, to a husband who notoriously won, that she had lost at cards. The deep respect that he felt for her was accompanied (as the flavour of a beef steak may be accompanied by that of mustard) by the knowledge that she was still human. Hornblower knew that there can be no love without respect — and no love without a twinkle of amusement as well.
“You are the dearest man in the world,” said Barbara, and he realised that her eyes had been fixed on his face for the last several seconds.
“It is my greatest happiness to hear you say so,” he answered, with a sincerity that no one could doubt. And then a recollection of their position in this house, as mere guests, came to them both to modify the intensity of their feelings.
“And we shall be the most unpopular people in Jamaica if we keep Their Excellencies waiting for their dinner,” said Hornblower.
They were only guests, now, mere hangers-on, their presence only tolerated by people who had their official lives still to live; that was what Hornblower thought at dinner time when the new Commander-in-Chief sat in the place of honour. He thought of the Byzantine General, blinded and disgraced, begging in the market-place, and he nearly said, ‘Spare a penny for Belisarius’ when the Governor turned to include him in the conversation.
“Your marine hasn’t been apprehended yet,” said Hooper.
“Not my marine any longer, sir,” laughed Hornblower. “Admiral Ransome’s marine now.”
“I understand there’s no doubt that he will be apprehended,” said Ransome.
“We’ve not lost a deserter yet during the time of my appointment here,” said Hooper.
“That’s very reassuring,” was Ransome’s comment.
Hornblower stole a glance at Barbara across the table. She was eating her dinner with apparent composure; he had feared lest this reminder should upset her, for he knew how strongly she felt about Hudnutt’s fate. A woman was liable to think that the inevitable should not be inevitable in matters in which she was interested. Barbara’s mastery of her feelings was something more to admire about her.
Lady Hooper changed the subject, and conversation became general and gay. Hornblower actually began to enjoy himself, with a lightheaded feeling of irresponsibility. There were no cares on his shoulders; soon — the moment the packet was ready to sail — he would be on his way to England, and he would be pleasantly settled in Smallbridge while these people here went on dealing with unrewarding problems in tropical heat. Nothing here mattered to him any more. If Barbara were happy he had not a care in the world, and Barbara was seemingly happy, chattering away to her neighbours on either hand.
It was pleasant, too, that there was not to be any heavy drinking, for after dinner there was to be a reception in honour of the new Commander-in-Chief to which all the island society not eligible for dinner had been invited. He found himself looking at life with fresh eyes and actually approving of it.
After dinner, when the men and the ladies met again in the drawing room and the first new guests were being announced, he was able to exchange a word or two with Barbara and to see that she was happy and not over-tired. Her smile was bright and her eyes sparkling. He had to turn away from her in the end to shake hands with Mr Hough, just arrived with his wife. Other guests were streaming in; a sudden influx of blue and gold and white marked the arrival of Coleman, Triton‘s captain, and a couple of his lieutenants. Ransome himself was presenting Coleman to Barbara, and Hornblower could not help but hear the conversation close behind him.
“Captain Coleman is an old friend of mine,” said Barbara. “You were Perfecto Coleman in those days, weren’t you, captain?”
“And you were Lady Leighton, ma’am,” said Coleman.
A harmless enough remark, but enough to shatter Hornblower’s frail happiness, to darken the brightly-lit room, to set the babble of conversation in the room roaring in Hornblower’s ears like a torrent, through the din of which Barbara’s words pierced shrill like a whistle note.
“Captain Coleman was my first husband’s flag-lieutenant,” said Barbara.
She had had a first husband; she had been Lady Leighton. Hornblower nearly always contrived to forget this. Rear-Admiral Sir Percy Leighton had died for his country, of wounds received in the battle of Rosas Bay, thirteen full years ago. But Barbara had been Leighton’s wife, Leighton’s widow. She had been Leighton’s wife before she had been Hornblower’s. Hornblower hardly ever thought about it, but when he did he still experienced a jealousy which he knew to be insane. Any reminder not only reawoke that jealousy, but brought back to him with agonising clarity the recollection of the despair, the envy, the black self-derision he had known in those days. He had been a desperately unhappy man then, and this made him the same desperately unhappy man now. He was no longer the successful sailor, terminating a brilliant period of command. He was the thwarted lover, despised even by his own despicable self. He knew again all the misery of limitless and yet unsatisfied desire, to blend with the jealousies of the moment.
Hough was awaiting a reply to some remark he had made. Hornblower forced himself to extemporise some casual sentence which may or may not have been relevant. Hough drifted away, and Hornblower found himself against his will looking over at Barbara. She had her ready smile for him, and he had to smile back, and he knew it to be a dreadful, lopsided, mirthless smile, like a grin on the face of a dead man. He saw a worried look come on her face; he knew how instantly she was conscious of his moods, and that made it worse than ever. She was the heartless woman who had spoken of her first husband — that jealousy of his was a mood she knew nothing of, was not susceptible to. He was a man who had stepped suddenly from firm ground into a morass of uncertainty that would engulf him.
Captain Knyvett had entered the room, bluff and grizzled, dressed in blue broadcloth with unpretentious brass buttons. As he approached Hornblower could only with an effort remember him as the captain of the Jamaica packet.
“We sail a week from today, My Lord,” he said. “The announcement for the mail will be made tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” said Hornblower.