"You are Dr. Graves' second wife, then?"
"His third, sir. His first gave him two sons before dying of a consumption, and his second gave birth to stillborn twins before dying from loss of blood. Then he lived alone for over twenty years before we were joined together. Sir Thomas, by the by, claims to stand in lieu of uncle to me, having given me away to my husband two years ago."
Mrs. Graves's speech was interrupted by the entry of a personage who could only be Sir Thomas Frobisher himself Squat, bandy-legged, and puffy, Sir Thomas had a wide mouth and goggling tawny eyes. He peered suspiciously at Hoare, then turned to Mrs. Graves.
"Eleanor, my dear! What have you done to yourself now?" he cried. "And what have you brought us this time?" he went on, returning his critical glance to Bartholomew Hoare as he stood, plain in his wrinkled Navy coat, wide, loose seaman's trousers, and wet, coarse buckled shoes.
"Permit me, Sir Thomas, to introduce Lieutenant Bartholomew Hoare of the Navy, who has just rescued me from an unknown fate," Mrs. Graves said.
" 'Hoare,' eh?" Sir Thomas said. "Well, sir, I'll have you know I am a baronet-and a knight. Which of us takes precedence, eh? The… er… lady of the night or the hereditary knight? Eh?"
Hoare knew from old this reaction to his name. It was predictable from old, and he had learned how to avert most of the hostilities that could otherwise follow. "You, of course, sir. Myself, I am merely Bartholomew Hoare-at your service, now, or anytime." He accompanied his whisper with a cold, gray stare. He also made his leg to the man of superior station.
"Frobisher is a famous name in history, Sir Thomas," Hoare continued. "Have I the honor of addressing a descendant of Sir Martin Frobisher, discoverer of the famous bay of that name?"
Sir Thomas's equivocal look showed he was now of two minds about Bartholomew Hoare. On the one hand, Sir Thomas was pleased at the implied compliment to his ancestry; on the other hand, irritated at being addressed in such a strangely confidential whisper and suspicious that someone- surely not Mrs. Graves-was making game of him. Was he, head of the Frobishers, risking a challenge to his standing by being asked to meet a whispering man with an obscene name? Even when, in a few words, Mrs. Graves explained Hoare's disability, the baronet's air tilted only slightly toward the affable.
"Yes, Mr… er… Hoare," he said. "While the name Frobisher goes back as far as the Conqueror and even beyond, my ancestor Sir Martin Frobisher was the first to bring it into prominence. A century later, of course, Charles II granted the baronetcy to the first Sir Charles, who was my fourth or fifth great-grandfather.
"Since then, the family which I have the honor to head has been prominent in Dorset society. Indeed, the Frobishers are received at court as a matter of course, and each of the eldest Frobisher sons is knighted upon reaching his majority, also as a matter of course. So, you see, we are twice-a-knight men."
Hoare was about to burst into one of his silent laughs when he realized Sir Thomas was in deadly earnest, so he turned his laugh into a breath that he hoped indicated proper admiration.
"As a matter of fact," the Knight-Baronet went on in a nasal, patronizing voice, "I expect to attend the investiture of my only son-young Martin, you know-the next time he accompanies His Majesty to our little city. He is a captain in the Foot Guards, of course."
Guardee the young Frobisher might be, Hoare told himself, but he would remain undubbed for some time if his knighting must await the King's return to Weymouth. These days the poor monarch, self-isolated in Kew for months at a time, seldom even came to London; he would hardly make his way back soon to his former favorite watering place.
"Tell me… er… Hoare," Sir Thomas said. "From whence does your family derive?"
"They were Orkneymen originally, sir, and we still consider ourselves such, even though my father has bought a small property near Melton Mowbray."
"What say? Speak up, man."
"The Orkneys, sir." To continue at top whisper Hoare had to strain his maimed throat. He felt himself being brought by the lee. The man must know that an attack on his handicap, unlike an attack on his name, was hard to deal with. Sir Thomas was being gratuitously offensive.
"D'ye hunt, then,… er… Hoare?"
"Not as a regular thing, Sir Thomas."
"Hmph." Sir Thomas began to look about him for something more worth his attention than a disheveled junior naval officer with an obscene name who could not speak and who did not hunt.
It was then that Hoare succumbed to temptation and reacted with a sally that was to cause him considerable subsequent grief.
"Of course, sir, my father is MB of our neighborhood's battery."
"Battery, sir? Battery? 'MB'? What's an MB, pray? And what has a battery to do with huntin'?"
"You know about falconry, surely, Sir Thomas?"
"Of course. Obsolete now, but a perfectly acceptable avocation for the nobility and gentry."
"Well, sir, we Hoares and our like-minded neighbors in the Northern Islands have trained bats to hunt game and retrieve it."
He paused, gasped, and continued.
"We find that bats, being creatures that nurse their young, are far more intelligent, and more easily trained, than falcons of any species. (Gasp.) They are, in fact, as clever and responsive as the Skye terriers our fellow islanders to the south have taken up so avidly, or the herds of Shetland ponies our neighbors to the north employ to keep down the auk population."
Pause; gasp.
"We fly our nimble little fellows in the dusk, of course. It makes for very good sport. My father, having made himself a skilled flederman, was appointed Master of Battery for our little neighborhood hunt. Hence the 'MB.'
"Should you find yourself in Leicestershire, sir, I believe he could promise you an excellent evening in the field."
Hoare heard a smothered sound from Mrs. Graves. He also saw that, while he might not have gained the Knight-Baronet's respect, he had at least captured his interest.
"What d'ye hunt with 'em, then?" Sir Thomas asked in a reluctant croaking voice.
"Flies, sir. We feed them to our frogs."
By good fortune, Sir Thomas's reaction was cut short; Dr. Simon Graves wheeled himself into the Strangers' Room.
Dr. Graves looked to be in his late sixties; later, Hoare was to learn he was seventy-four. At one time, he would have matched Hoare's height and build, but now he was confined to a peculiar light chair of wicker, bamboo, and ash. The toroidal supplementary wheel outboard of each primary wheel made a continuous handle by which the doctor could roll himself about with his still-powerful arms. Hoare had seen crude, heavy versions of similar invalid's chairs, but this one, light yet obviously strong, was a work of art.
The doctor's wife introduced the two and went on to describe to her husband and the knight her afternoon's affray on the beach. She belittled her own role and exaggerated Hoare's-but not too effusively-and concluded, "So that is how Lieutenant Hoare and I became acquainted and why he is here. I am most grateful to him, my dear."
"As am I," the doctor said in a surprisingly powerful baritone. Hoare thought he could remember what his own voice had sounded like before the Glorious First of June; he thought it had been much the same.
Sir Thomas would allow Dr. Graves to say no more. "But you mean to say there are two rascals tied up aboard your yacht… er… Hoare?
"Why," he added, "I must have 'em taken in charge immediately I'll have her boarded and relieve you of 'em. Where does she lie?"
Hoare told him and granted permission for Sir Thomas's men to board Inconceivable and remove her cocooned cargo.