Lord Hornblower's Shortcut by JediShampoo

Lady Barbara Hornblower was conferring with her housekeeper in the drawing room when she heard the front door slam with a loud bang, and the even louder hoarse cackles of her husband’s laughter. She concealed her slight surprise from Mrs. Wilkey, but cut short the interview all the same. Something odd was brewing, Barbara just knew.

It was not that the sound of her husband’s laughter was alarming in and of itself-- despite his recent retirement, Horatio had become singularly cheerful of late-- but the prolonged volume of his conversation, and the intermittent peppering chortles, had piqued her curiosity irretrievably.

"My dear--" At her appearance in the foyer Horatio turned from his animated dialogue with Brown to grin at her. His brown eyes sparked with mirth. The ring of white hair about his ears stood every which way like a thatch after a blow. "You will never guess what we have done."

Barbara had no intention of even trying. She merely clasped her hands and raised her brows.

"Tom and I have traveled to Maidstone and back in thirty-two minutes!" Horatio told her. At her continued silence, he added, "What do you think of that, my dear?"

"Indeed?" Barbara had not realized a race was on. Still, his odd excitement was infectious, so she teased, "And how did you accomplish that? Did you hitch the coach to the train?"

"Ha! The train. H’m," Horatio said. His look at her, and the impatient wave of his hand that followed, damned the train and its dirty smoke and whistles and its five trips a day into insignificance. "The train. No, we accomplished it through the application of shortcuts."

Barbara remained nonplussed. Brown seemed equally stymied. "Shortcuts?" she asked, hesitant. "But the main road leads straight to town."

"But it does not, my dear," Horatio said with obvious patience. "It follows the river, and you know well how it curves south and then east before the bridge."

"Yes, yes, of course," Barbara said. Horatio had always had an unshakeable sense of geometric direction. Still she wondered inwardly why the road was suddenly insufficient to the task of getting Horatio to town. Yet she listened as he described the cart-lane they’d found, little more than a sheep-track, really.

"It runs past the Derwent farm. It must be driven with care, and yet it comes out past the eastering curve, and it cuts a neat five minutes from the trip! And there is another as well."

Brown began to look interested. Barbara did not know what to think. Was he so bored, here, now that he was no longer Admiral of the Fleet? Horatio’s brilliance remained undimmed with age, but brilliance as ever needed an outlet.

"How… inventive."

Her tone was light, but Horatio stopped a moment, looking into her eyes as if searching for irony. Finding none, he smiled. "I am eighty-one years old, my dear. I need to save all the time that I can."

Barbara laughed, glad he shared her humor in this. "If anyone could find a way to create more time, it would be you." She reached out a hand and he took it in his, grip still strong, warm, and alive.

***

At first Barbara had no objections to her husband’s newest hobby of discovering different ways to navigate the parish, and even if she had, she would not have voiced them. Of course she was as concerned for his health as always; she did not want him to bring on an apoplexy by running harum-scarum about the countryside. But she had enough respect for his abilities and mental capacity to let him do, as ever, as he pleased. After all, the man had sailed countless ships and fleets of ships around the world and back. He was a hero, one who had survived battle and illness. After such a life, for such a man, retirement was the true challenge.

She had learned long ago to live with his restlessness, and indeed it was one of those things she admired and loved about him. Any worry she had was insignificant compared to what she had endured twenty, thirty years ago. The April weather was lovely and healthful, and Horatio was home for dinner every night, and so Barbara was mostly content.

It was only when the maps and quills and sheets of blank paper began to appear at the breakfast and lunch tables every day that a dust mote of annoyance began to flutter about in the sunshine of her declining years.

Blown like his uncombed hair. It seemed to have grown an inch in the last week. And Horatio had always been so fastidious.

Yet there he sat, hunched over breakfast, ignoring his toast and butter to mutter things like, "if I take four stones northwest, and then three, perhaps four more minutes?" and to make scribbled notations on a sheet of paper that even at that moment threatened to dip into his egg.

"Stones, Horatio?" Barbara asked lightly and set down her teacup to watch him, and that errant piece of paper. "Ballast, perhaps?"

Horatio glanced up at her remark. His gaze, at first unfocused, sharpened quickly with intelligence. "Of course not, my dear." At her half-feigned interest in his doings, his enthusiasm asserted itself as well. "In fact, I believe the coach is too bulky. The pony cart would do nicely, and then I need not bother Tom."

"I am sure Tom does not mind," Barbara interjected quickly. One of her consolations in this new hobby had been Horatio’s constant companionship with their coachman, a fine, sturdy fellow.

"But that is not the point. I cannot monopolize him nor the carriage all day, or else how are you to go visiting and shopping?"

Barbara ignored the quip to really look at him. The sun streamed tiny beams through the eyelets of the breakfast-room curtains, picking out the gilt on his plate, the numbers and odd drawings on his sheets of paper, and the-- was it guilty?-- gleam in his eyes.

He was a sly one, her Horatio. She’d always known he could misdirect others at his will, but he should know by now that she would not fall prey to his tricks.

Yet the sun highlighted other new and startling things, as well. The warm rays accented the square line of his shoulders as he sat looking at her, straighter than they’d been for many a year; the utter steadiness of the ink-stained fingers gripping the quill; the set of his jaw, pulling his paper-thin skin taut.

Whatever its annoyances, this new hobby seemed to have had a rejuvenating effect on Horatio. He looked as he had when he’d been seventy-five, perhaps younger.

For an instant Barbara was almost jealous of his hobby, and surprised that so few years had wrought so much. Where had all those years come from and gone? Yet after that instant passed it seemed that Barbara could also count them all, their joys and sorrows, and that she could pour her gratitude into barrels and measure it.

"As long as you do not trample our tenant’s flocks or crops," she said, and the sly artifice was swept from his eyes by the crinkling at their corners.

"Fields!" he said, and went back to writing, hunched once more.

***

One day a week later Horatio didn’t even appear for breakfast. He’d been gone when Barbara had awoken. She sat at the table alone through two cups of tea, trying to decide whether or not to send Tom with a search party. Yet what could she say? Admiral Lord Hornblower is running about the countryside, will you please locate him and tell me whether or not he is dead or has run away to sea?

She’d just put aside that sick fantasy and had stood to leave the room when Horatio burst in, running to her, knocking over one of the spindly chairs in his haste to reach her.

"Twenty-one minutes, Barbara!" he exclaimed. His hair was a salt-and-pepper bush now, curling below his ears, and his eyes were wide. He looked a dozen years younger, and his hands as he gripped hers had the strength they’d held at fifty. His excitement was that of a man half his age, standing on the sunlit beach of a tiny Pacific island.

Barbara’s windpipe twisted itself inside her until she could not breathe to answer him. How had she not noticed the change in him until now? It was unnerving, and enthralling, and yet his words--!

"That is impossible, Horatio," she said when breath returned. His only answer was his searching gaze, so she continued. "Please acknowledge me, Horatio! You are frightening an old lady."

"Never old," he told her with a squeeze of her elbows. He released one and tightened his grip on the other, pulling her from the room. "And not impossible, mathematically or in practice. Come with me. Have Mary fetch your watch, if you do not trust mine, and I will show you."

Barbara hesitated. He seemed calmer now, though his strength of purpose was undimmed. She was still afraid. And yet how often lately had she perhaps resented this hobby some small bit, that it seemed it might consume their remaining years together? Was he not offering her a chance now to share in it? Barbara straightened her own spine to match his.

"Mary!" she called.

***

The uncanny excitement faded somewhat as she sat in the pony cart next to her husband and waited for Tom to check the fittings. The sun had burned off the morning dew, the air was clear and the countryside as seen from their drive was as English and mundane as ever. They were going for a ride, just as if they were going to church. Barbara tucked her glasses into her pocket. She would not need them to count the minutes on her watch.

And the start of their journey was mundane as well. Horatio clucked his tongue and snapped the reins, and Fine Bit trotted down the drive to the road. At least he’d chosen to put one of their strong carriage horses at the traces, and not their fat, useless pony.

"Do not start timing us until we reach the road, my dear," Horatio said.

His calm assurance steadied her further, and Barbara could reply "of course" with perfect equanimity.

Then the turn past the gate post: Horatio said "now!" and lifted the reins into a quick sharp wave, and Barbara was near-jerked back into her seat by Fine Bit’s burst of speed.

At first the way was familiar. Horatio didn’t speak and didn’t need to as they barreled down the flat-packed village road. Even when he wrapped the reins about his square hands to slow the horses and turn, Barbara recognized the Derwent’s farm and the lane he’d described to her and Brown two weeks ago.

It wasn’t until they turned again where no break was visible through the wall of trees that Barbara’s alarm began to grow again; and yet there was a path, narrow and grassy but no less existent.

"My!" Barbara exclaimed when she’d caught her breath. "How ever did you find that?"

Horatio had not spoken for several minutes, his whole concentration focused on the drive. "It was marked with four stacked stones; did you not see it?" he half-yelled over the clopping of Fine Bit’s hooves and the swish of the passing tree-branches.

Barbara had to admit that no, she had not: who would expect a road to be marked by piles of stones rather than posts or signs, as if Druids had carved these paths through the countryside rather than good, solid Christians? But as Horatio slowed a bit yet again, she could see, up ahead, three stones in a pile next to wheel tracks. Horatio took the left turn in a hurry, ignoring the branches whipping about his face. Barbara yelped and reached out a hand to brush away a bough that tried to catch her jacket. Stones, she thought as a memory reached her: not ballast.

"Are you watching the time, my dear?" Horatio called to her, a definite grin in his voice.

"Yes," she said. But it was a lie, because she could not glance away from their surroundings for even an instant. It was as if they’d left their familiar county and even country behind. Here, down this hidden road, it looked and smelled as if summer was in full bloom rather than spring just awakening. The air was thick with green and humidity, warm despite the shade. And the flora-- she did not recognize some of those trees! Where had the oaks, the alders, the riverbank beeches gone? They had been replaced by impossibly tall trees, slender as saplings, with wide, emerald-glistening leaves that waved about with every small breeze, as if the forest itself was taking deep breaths, then exhaling as they passed.

"Hold on tight," Horatio said, and his tone was intent, no longer amused. Barbara glanced at him. His jaw was set, his eyes engrossed in driving the path before them, and his knuckles between the reins were white.

Her earlier alarm returned as they swept along, first crawling and then slithering up her spine. Her left hand crept into the crook of Horatio’s tensed arm to grip it hard. The forest was not only breathing, her frightened fancies told her. It was reaching for them. Wide-mouthed violet flowers with tongues of fiery crimson swayed into their path, then jumped away as Fine Bit’s flying hooves and the cart wheels threatened their necks. Something from far above dripped onto the brim of Barbara’s bonnet and she used her free hand to slap-brush it away. She was glad for her gloves-- it had practically oozed off her.

Barbara was even gladder when another turn carried them from high summer back into springtime-- what a thought to have at her age-- and onto a more familiar-looking beech-lined path. The muscles in Horatio’s arm released some of their strain, and he slowed the horse and cart into a nearly civilized pace for their turn at an old fence-post. And there was Maidstone bridge, just ahead.

Barbara hardly had time to wonder at the presence of the river to their right-- would they not have had to run through it to get here?-- before they’d crossed the bridge and Horatio said, breathless, "The time, my dear?"

Barbara, like any sensible old woman, simply stopped wondering about the river and the patent impossibility of their having not crossed it. She glanced at her watch and did a quick calculation.

"Ten minutes, and-- seventeen? seconds--"

"Ha!" Horatio said with evident glee. "Let me turn quickly, then, for this may be my best run yet--"

"No!" Barbara found herself yelling, to both her own surprise and her husband’s. Horatio stared, mouth agape. In all their years together, Barbara could not remember raising her voice in such a manner to him, but once started, she could not seem to stop.

"Please, I beg you! Take the main road home! I believe you, Horatio. But I am too old for this. I am too old!" To Barbara’s further horror, she heard the crack in her own voice as she said this last.

And she watched as the mad, intent gleam faded from Horatio’s eyes, to be replaced with a sick concern.

"I am so very sorry, Love," he said in a quiet voice. "Of course we will drive the main road home. You are not too old-- I am-- h'm-- simply an inconsiderate husband."

Barbara felt terrible watching such guilt, but she could not turn back time, simply forge ahead. "Never," she said, and breathed deep, releasing her fear in a sigh, restoring her natural calm. "I am impressed with your creative navigational science! It has just been many a year since I have had such excitement."

"Undoubtedly. Nine, at least," Horatio said with a tiny smile, and yet still his eyes watched her with worry. He was all contriteness and solicitousness as he drove home at a sedate pace. Which made Barbara feel even more old, and guilty, as if she’d irretrievably disappointed him.

***

Barbara sat in front of her vanity mirror later that night, staring at her own withered, lined face. She didn’t think of the harrowing ride. She could only remember the moments after: the excitement fading from Horatio’s eyes, the concern for his elderly wife, the dawning disappointment that she would not share this adventure with him.

Yet as she stared at her own reflection, she could not help but wonder: were some of the wrinkles gone, that had lurked at the corners of her eyes yesterday? Was her chin just a tiny bit firmer? Bit by bit the ride down ‘Three Stones Road’ crept back into memory, but now that the fright was over she could remember the small thrill of wonder she’d felt at the sight of those plants. At the breathtaking speed, even the masculine intensity of Horatio’s gaze, and the strength of his arm as she’d held it.

Then just as quickly the memory was gone. She was Barbara Hornblower, an old lady. She had grown grandchildren, who would surely express their horror at the risks she had taken.

Barbara sighed. She turned down the lamp and crawled into bed. Horatio would join her after he’d finished examining his maps and his calculations, and she would have already been long asleep. That was the way of things now.

***

Horatio continued his explorations but he no longer worried Barbara with the details. He was gone much of the day but was always careful to take meals with her, and to show interest in her hesitant gossip of the parish.

Rather than soothing her, that itself bothered Barbara more than any other thing. Before, Horatio had never had time for such idle, meaningless chitchat. She’d always suspected that he loved her more for not forcing it upon him. Yet she found herself doing it, if only to have a common subject for conversation. The spring weather continued so fine that there was little reason to discuss it.

And day by day Barbara grew more and more ancient, and Horatio seemed to only grow younger. The top of his head was still bald and tan as ever, yet the hair in a ring about it was more pepper than salt now. Barbara thought it odd that none of their friends or servants commented upon it, and began to wonder if it was only her eyesight getting worse.

She took to wearing her glasses all day, and she hardly cared at all when Horatio started and sighed at the sight of her in them. Surely he was disgusted. And for Barbara rheumatism set in, and she ached all over. She could hardly crick her neck to look up at him any more. Like he’d been years ago, he seemed so much taller and straighter than she.

Looking down rather than up: that was probably how she noticed one day that something was amiss when he returned from one of his outings. Horatio had jogged in the front door, looking like the sixty-year-old Admiral Hornblower of yore come home from a mission. At catching sight of her in the foyer he’d stopped in his tracks and put a hand behind his back in a clearly guilty stance.

"Hello, Horatio," Barbara said and gave him a misty, unfocused smile, easing his alert posture. When he’d greeted her and turned to speak to Brown, Barbara noticed something wrong with the sleeve of his light riding jacket. The cuff was torn, and there seemed to be-- was that blood?-- dripping from his wrist and onto the black-and-white tile of the hall.

For a moment Barbara forgot her bad eyesight and her rheumatism in her shock. She ran forward to pull at the guilty arm, and what she saw caused her to look up into Horatio’s eyes with alarm.

"What? Do you know what it is?" she cried.

"It is nothing, my dear. I simply scratched myself. Brown will clean it up for me, won’t you?" Horatio said in a jolly, ‘don’t-worry-your-little-head-my-love’ voice.

But Barbara would have none of it. There was something-- green, and slimy wrapped about his wrist. It looked like a slender plant-frond, and it was clearly causing some pain.

"It may be poisonous," she told him in a nearly-forgotten, firm tone. Barbara kept a garden. She had gardening gloves, and she knew how to deal with stinging plants. "Come with me, now."

It was a tone she’d rarely used even in her youth, and Horatio obeyed. Barbara dragged him to the back door and used her gloves to pull it off his wrist. It-- whatever It was-- yet Barbara suspected she knew from where it had come—gave only a slight struggle and soon ended up on the flagstones of their back porch, beneath the heel of her sturdy old-lady shoes. A wet cloth brought by Brown and some of Barbara’s ointment cleaned and soothed the wound.

Husband and wife had been silent throughout the operation, but as she wrapped Horatio’s wrist in gauze she looked up at him and asked only, "how long now?"

Horatio’s nearly-unlined face grimaced, but he answered, quietly, "fourteen minutes."

It was just as Barbara had feared. Lord only knew where he passed through now, on his travels. "And yet you will try again, will you not?"

"Yes, dear," Horatio told her.

Barbara sniffed. "At some point, you may not--"

"I may not--"

Find my way back, Barbara finished for him, silently, because he would not say it, and she would not force him. And yet he would try, would risk it. Barbara could hardly blame him. It was as if the excitement of his youth had returned, the vigor, the absorbing interest and joy of a new thing, of doing something no-one had done before. And it was a new youth, one more heady, one unconcerned with the fate of the world.

However young he looked, Horatio had very little time left in this world. To take that joy away from him would be brutal, and Barbara loved him too much to do so, even to keep him to herself.

And yet the same could be said for her own time, but she hung on, growing ever more staid and content to spend her remaining years in peace. She’d been something of an adventurer in her youth but all that was past now.

Or was it? Barbara stared up at Horatio, gently clasping his wrist. The thrill of something forbidden passed through her. It reanimated her, bringing back for a few instants that young woman in the Pacific, that young woman who’d fallen in love with someone else’s husband.

This time, Horatio made the first move. "Will you-- come with me?"

Old Barbara hesitated. Their pack of grandchildren appeared in her mind’s eye, warning her to be careful, because many elderly folks fell out of carriages and broke their hips and had to ride in Bath chairs for the rest of their lives; many elderly people died of apoplexy from driving too fast--

And Barbara thought of the vicar’s wife, who’d confessed to her after a glass of wine that her husband had died of apoplexy while making love, and he’d been all of seventy-five--

Horatio, her husband. She had gone into battle with him, and through a hurricane for him.

"Let me get my hat," Barbara said.

"Yes," Horatio answered and smiled, warm, and alive.

***

END

Author’s Notes: Inspired by a short story by Stephen King called "Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut." An homage to that story which I haven’t read in 18 years, but the second I thought of it the plot bunny wouldn’t let go. :)

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