Caudebec

Hornblower stood silently as the ruined town slipped past under his gaze.  It was an odd contrast, to be standing on the deck of the Porta Coeli, observing the devastation he had ordered while the muffled but merry sounds of the royal party below mingled with the deathly silence on shore.  It was wrong, in a way, that he should have come on deck alone, that he should allow his guests to continue with their luncheon and remain blissfully ignorant of the cost at which their regime was being restored.  His hands gripped the rail tightly.  Perhaps it was no better to fully comprehend the cost.  The worthiest pursuit was liable to be forsaken once the price was deemed too great.

“You used him very ill, you know…”

Hornblower shifted in his place at the memory of Barbara’s words.  Bush had joined them for dinner—Hornblower could not remember when, exactly, they had had him as their guest at Smallbridge, but he remembered that Barbara had been wearing the necklace that he had given her as a wedding gift and how her blue-gray eyes had sparkled in the candlelight.  The very fact that he remembered as much made Hornblower think that it must have been soon after they had married—it was the sort of observation a newly-wedded groom would have made.

Nor could he recall much of the conversation that night.  The entire evening had passed in a blur for him with only a few—seemingly trivial—details prominent in his memory.  In his mind’s eye, he could conjure up the sight of the dining room alight in the warm glow of at least two dozen candles, the vast floral centerpiece teeming with hothouse-grown blooms, the long table spread with a sumptuous meal worthy of the fine linen upon which it was set.  Indeed, he could practically smell the heavenly aromas of the food even now.  The roast beef may have been a concession to his sailor’s palate but it bore little resemblance to the tough, salty mass of meat that bore the same name aboard ship.  The vegetables, delightfully fresh, had put their sea-borne counterparts to shame, too.  Even the service had seemed better; Hornblower had congratulated himself on having his meal fashionably a la Russe, which only struck him now as the pretension that it was; his stewards had always served him thusly and they had done so while maintaining their balance at sea, which Hornblower doubted any ordinary footman at Smallbridge could manage.   

For his part, Bush had seemed completely overwhelmed.  He had complimented Barbara at least three times on the grounds and the beauty of the rooms and had repeated his admiration to Hornblower for good measure.  He had sat stiffly in his chair during dinner and had managed to knock his crystal goblet into his plate several times over the course of the meal, starting like a nervous rabbit and apologizing in embarrassment each time he did so.  Barbara had dismissed his clumsiness with a smile which seemed to grow more amused with every apology Bush offered.  What little he had said had had to be coaxed from him and, Hornblower acknowledged, were it not for his wife’s conversational skills, they would have made for a dull party indeed.  Yet Hornblower had been able to observe the whole of the evening unfold before him with satisfaction.  Any fear that Smallbridge would not impress and any doubt that Bush would not be sufficiently awed by the material evidence of the success of which Hornblower was so proud dissolved in the uncomfortably delightful spectacle of the usually stolid Bush being completely undone by a small, but formal, dinner party.  Years of jealously watching Bush’s iron nerve withstand grape and roundshot on a battle-torn quarterdeck with nary a quaver were avenged before the main course.

 “I fear I’m no tactician, Captain Bush,” he had heard Barbara chuckle.  

           “Nor I, your ladyship,” came the typically humble and mirthless reply.  Despite all the time they had spent together on Lydia and her numerous invitations to call her “Lady Barbara”, Bush had never become comfortable enough to address her more informally.  Barbara had realized soon enough that there was no point in insisting on it and had long since dropped the matter entirely.

             The two of them had been speaking of Bush’s career at sea—it seemed the only topic on which Bush was willing to speak with any volume—and Hornblower had noticed that his wife was giving him a particularly pointed look, silently willing him to engage in the small talk she knew perfectly well that he detested.  He had been woefully neglectful of their conversation, rationalizing that any contribution he might make of any significance would rapidly cause the discussion to spiral into something far too technical to be suitable for the dinner table.  In truth, he had preferred to merely observe; he had been too long accustomed to saying as little as possible to Bush and had no wish to participate in an exchange that was far too vague to hold his interest.  Yet, a host would not be forgiven for his temperamental ways as a sea captain might and it had been with reluctance that Hornblower had faced the consequences of having indulged in selfish disengagement for the better part of the evening.

             “Captain Bush is far too modest,” Hornblower had finally interjected under Barbara’s unrelenting gaze.  He had felt he could say no more—Bush was most decidedly not a tactician—but Barbara’s expression was plain in its dissatisfaction with this meager offering to the discussion.  “You handle a ship as well as any man I know.”  That, at least, was truthful.  Hornblower had trusted that Bush was content to leave the distinction between strategic initiative and raw seamanship blurred.

             True to form, Bush had bowed his head, forcing himself to look up at Hornblower with embarrassed eyes.  “That’s uncommonly generous of you to say, sir,” he had said simply, then proceeded to knock his glass into his plate again.

            “Nonsense,” the reply had seemed to come from Hornblower’s lips instinctively.  In truth, he had regarded any discussion of the merits of a man who had so obviously proven himself professionally as the height of pointlessness and he had sought to quickly divert the conversation to one which left far less room for redundant back-patting.

             It was then, however, that the mischief-maker within had come to tempt Hornblower.  “Any man who can navigate a damaged prize in a storm has no business blushing at a few words of praise for his ship-handling skills!” he had clucked, then had smiled across the table to Barbara.  “You know that Captain Bush was at Trafalgar, my dear?”

             “Yes, Horatio.” 

             Hornblower had grinned all the wider at his wife’s patient reply.  Barbara had been regaled with Bush’s story of the great battle countless times during her passage on Lydia.  In fact, she had joked privately once that, thanks to Bush, she was as familiar with the Temeraire’s role in the fight as Captain Harvey must have been.

             “Has he told you of how he brought one of the prizes back in—a Spaniard, if I recall correctly…?” He did not pause long enough for Barbara to respond, as she would most certainly have replied in the affirmative if he had.  “Come, Captain Bush…you must tell her ladyship about it!”

             Bush had sat with his mouth agape, confused by his awareness that her ladyship had indeed heard the tale before and his unwillingness to embarrass his host by saying as much.  “Well…”

             Hornblower had found something deliciously gratifying about the faint look of annoyance on his wife’s face at his conversational maneuverings, but even in ‘defeat’ Barbara was a capable tactician in her own right.  She merely turned to their guest with a smile and leaned towards Bush in a manner that, had Hornblower not known better, might have convinced him she was actually interested in hearing the story again, “Yes, Captain Bush, please do…” 

*******

            The remainder of the evening had passed uneventfully with Hornblower retiring to his room awash in the afterglow of fine brandy and cigars at its conclusion.  He had knocked on the far door and entered Barbara’s dressing-room when bidden, unable to refrain from smiling at the sight of his wife at her dressing table, her long hair, that always smelled of jasmine and felt like silk between his fingers, down around her shoulders and being brushed with appropriate care by her maid, Hebe.  She made no move to greet him.  At the time, Hornblower had merely assumed that she could not turn as Hebe brushed; in hindsight, he should have taken her silence as a warning.

             “A very successful evening, wouldn’t you say, my dear?”  He had still not mastered the art of conversing with his wife in anything but insignificant pleasantries while there were servants present.

             “Thank you, Hebe,” Barbara had said and Hornblower’s heart had rejoiced in the way that many a recently married man’s heart does at the prospect of being alone with his new bride.  The little maid had smiled in the exasperatingly knowing way that she typically smiled when dismissed at night, taking ages, it seemed, before she closed the door behind her.

            Then Barbara had turned, her expression dangerously neutral, her blue-gray eyes like storm clouds. “You used him very ill, you know,” she said simply.

             He had expected her to say something about launching Bush into his Trafalgar tales at dinner—a playful scolding, perhaps, for requiring her to feign interest in the name of courtesy—but he had not been prepared for the severity of the tone she had used or for any comment regarding his treatment of Bush.  He had been so taken aback, as a matter of fact, that even now he could not recall how he had replied precisely.  He had been angry—more at the summary destruction of his good mood than at the accusation—and he could recall stammering some defensive nonsense about how a woman could never understand the relationship between men.  Yet he had known then, as much as he knew now, that she had been correct.  She had not said anything that he had not said to himself countless times before but there was something in the hearing of it that discomfited him.

            And now Bush was gone.

            Hornblower chastised himself for the raw emotions borne of the sight of the ruined quay and devastated landscape that was all the tribute the world possessed of Bush’s sacrifice.  He had not deserved his friend’s loyalty.  Had Bush gone to his death as many men had before, under dispassionately received orders from a commander whose only claim of allegiance was that demanded by the Articles of War, Hornblower felt certain that he could bear the weight of the loss better.  The service demanded that men do their duty.  Hornblower had had but one duty to Bush and Bush had trusted his commodore—his friend—implicitly; confident that whatever errand he might be sent upon would end in strategic success.  It had ended successfully, of course, but Hornblower felt more betrayer than strategist.

    "Monseigneur wishes to know whether your business on deck is very urgent," said a voice at his side.  It was Hau, the captain of the 60^th Rifles who had been attached to him at the start of his governorship at Le Havre. "His Royal Highness has a toast to propose, and wishes that you could join in it."

    "I'll come," said Hornblower.

     He looked once more over his shoulder at Caudebec as it disappeared around the bend.  Bush, perhaps, had forgiven him for his misuse over the years.  Hornblower only wished that he could say with perfect honesty that, had he to do it over, he would not do the same again.