Cecil Forester: Hornblower in the West Indies

“Why should I concern myself about him, My Lord?” he countered. “In any case, art knows no frontiers.”

“No,” said Hornblower. “I suppose not. Frontiers are elastic in these days. For instance, señor, I cannot remember if a convention exists between your government and mine regarding the mutual return of deserters.”

“A strange coincidence!” said Mendez-Castillo. “I was investigating that very question a few days ago—quite idly, I assure you, My Lord. And I found that no such convention exists. There have been many occasions when, as a matter of goodwill, deserters have been handed back. But most lamentably, My Lord; His Excellency has altered his views in that respect since a certain ship—the Estrella del Sur, whose name you may possibly recall, My Lord—was seized as a slaver outside this very harbour in circumstances that His Excellency found peculiarly irritating.”

There was no hostility; nor was there any hint of glee in Mendez-Castillo’s expression as he made this speech. He might as well have been discussing the weather.

“I appreciate His Excellency’s kindness and hospitality even more now,” said Hornblower. He hoped he was giving no indication that he was a man who had just been hoist by his own petard.

“I will convey that information to His Excellency,” said Mendez-Castillo. “Meanwhile there are many guests who are anxious to make Your Lordship’s acquaintance and that of Her Ladyship.”

Later in the evening it was Mendez-Castillo who came to Hornblower with a message from Her Excellency, to the effect that the Marquesa quite understood that Barbara might be tired, not having fully recovered yet from her recent experiences, and suggesting that if Her Ladyship and His Lordship chose to retire informally Their Excellencies would understand; and it was Mendez-Castillo who guided them to the far end of the room and through an unobtrusive door to where a back stairs led to their suite. The maid allotted to attend to Barbara was waiting up.

“Ask the maid to go, please,” said Barbara. “I can look aftermyself.”

Her tone was still flat and expressionless, and Hornblowe looked at her anxiously in fear lest her fatigue should be too much for her. But he did what she asked.

“Can I help in any way, dear?” he asked as the maid withdrew.

“You can stay and talk to me, if you will,” answered Barbara.

“With pleasure, of course,” said Hornblower. There was something strange about this situation. He tried to think of some topic to relieve the tension. “I still can hardly believe it about Hudnutt—”

“It is about Hudnutt that I wanted to speak,” said Barbara. There was something positively harsh about her voice. She was standing more stiffly and more rigidly than usual—no back could ever be straighter—and she was meeting Hornblower’s eyes with a kind of fixed stare like a soldier at attention awaiting sentence of death.

“Whatever is the matter, dearest?”

“You are going to hate me,” said Barbara.

“Never! Never!”

“You don’t know what it is I’m going to tell you.”

“Nothing you could tell me—”

“Don’t say that yet! Wait until you hear. I set Hudnutt free. It was I who arranged for his escape.”

The words came like sudden forked lightning. Or it was as if in a dead calm the main-topsail yard had fallen without warning from its slings on to the deck.

“Dearest,” said Hornblower, unbelieving, “you’re tired. Why don’t you—”

“Do you think I’m delirious?” asked Barbara. Her voice was still unlike anything Hornblower had ever heard; so was the brief, bitter laugh that accompanied her words. “I could be. This is the end of all my happiness.”

“Dearest—” said Hornblower.

“Oh—” said Barbara. There was a sudden overwhelming tenderness in that single sound, and her rigid attitude relaxed, but instantly she stiffened again and snatched back the hands she had held out to him. “Please listen. I’ve told you now. I set Hudnutt free—I set him free!”

There could be no doubting that she meant what she said, truth or not. And Hornblower, standing unable to move, staring at her, gradually reached the realisation that it was true after all. The realisation seeped through the weak places in his unbelief, and as he thought of each piece of evidence it was as if he were marking off a new height in a.rising tide.

“That last night at Admiralty House!” he said.

“Yes.”

“You took him out through the wicket gate into the gardens!”

“Yes.”

“Then Evans helped you. He had the key.”

“Yes.”

“And that fellow in Kingston—Bonner—must have helped you, too.”

“You said he was something of a villain. He was ready for adventure at least.”

“But—but the scent the bloodhounds followed?”

“Someone dragged Hudnutt’s shirt along the ground on a rope.”

“But—but even so—?” She did not need to tell him; as he said those words he made the next deduction. “That two hundred pounds!”

“The money I asked you for,” said Barbara, sparing herself nothing. A ten-pound reward would not avail if someone were willing to spend two hundred pounds to help a prisoner escape.

Hornblower knew all about it now. His wife had flouted the law. She had set at naught the authority of the Navy. She had—the rising tide reached suddenly up to a new level.

“It’s a felony!” he said. “You could be transported for life—you could be sent to Botany Bay!”

“Do I care?” exclaimed Barbara. “Botany Bay! Does that matter now that you know? Now that you’ll never love me?”

“Dearest!” Those last words were so fantastically untrue that he had nothing else to say in reply. His mind was hard at work thinking about the effect of all this on Barbara. “That fellow Bonner—he could blackmail you.”

“He’s as guilty as I am,” said Barbara. The unnatural harshness of her voice reached its climax there, and a sudden softness came back into her voice with her next words, an overwhelming tenderness, which she could not help as she smiled her old quizzical smile at this husband of hers. “You’re only thinking about me!”

“Of course,” said Hornblower, surprised.

“But you must think about yourself. I’ve deceived you. I’ve cheated you. I took advantage of your kindness, of your generosity—oh!”

The smile changed to tears. It was horrible to see Barbara’s face distort itself. She was still standing like a soldier at attention. She would not allow her hands to cover her face; she stood with the tears streaming down and her features working, sparing herself nothing of her shame. He would have taken her into his arms at that moment except that he was still immobilised by astonishment, and Barbara’s last words had set a fresh torrent of thought pouring through his mind to hold him paralysed. If any of this were to come out the consequences would be without limit. Half the world would believe that Hornblower, the legendary Hornblower, had connived at the escape and desertion of a petty criminal. Nobody would believe the truth—but if the truth did find credence half the world would laugh at Hornblower being outwitted by his wife. There was a horrible gaping chasm opening right beside him. But there was already this other chasm—this awful distress that Barbara was suffering.

“I was going to tell you,” said Barbara, still erect, blinded by her tears so that she could see nothing. “When we reached home I was going to tell you. That’s what I thought before the hurricane. And there in the deckhouse I was going to tell you, after—after I told you the other. But there wasn’t time—you had to leave me. I had to tell you I loved you, first. I told you that, and I should have told you this instead. I should have.”