“If the slightest hint of this gets out—if the Americans or the French get to know what you are doing—you will be sorry you were ever born, Mr. Harcourt.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“I’ve no use for a dashing young officer in this connection, Mr. Harcourt. I want someone with ingenuity, someone with cunning. You are sure you understand?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
Hornblower at last took his eyes from Harcourt’s face. He himself had been a dashing young officer once. Now he had far more sympathy than ever before with the older men who had entrusted him with enterprises. A senior officer had perforce to trust his juniors, while still carrying the ultimate responsibility. If Harcourt should blunder, if he should be guilty of some indiscretion leading to a diplomatic protest, it would certainly be true that he might wish he had never been born—Hornblower would see to that. But Hornblower would be wishing he himself had never been born, too. But there was no useful purpose to be served in pointing that out.
“That is all, then, Mr. Harcourt.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Come on, Mr. Gerard. We’re late already.”
The upholstery of Mr. Sharpe’s carriage was of green satin, and the carriage was admirably sprung, so that although it lurched and swayed over the uneven street surfaces, it did not jolt or jerk. Yet after five minutes of lurching and swaying—the carriage had been standing for some time in the hot May sun—Hornblower felt himself turning as green as the upholstery. The Rue Royale, the Place d’armes, the Cathedral, received hardly a glance from him. He welcomed the halts despite the fact that each halt meant a formal meeting with strangers, the kind of meeting he disliked most heartily. He stood and gulped in the humid air during the blessed moments between descending from the carriage and entering in under the ornate porticoes that stood to welcome him. It had never occurred to him before that an Admiral’s full dress uniform might with advantage be made of something thinner than broadcloth, and he had worn his broad red ribbon and his glittering star far too often by now to feel the slightest pleasure in displaying it.
At the Naval Headquarters he drank an excellent Madeira; the General gave him a heavy Marsala; at the Governor’s mansion he was given a tall drink which had been iced (presumably with ice sent down during the winter from New England and preserved in an icehouse until nearly at midsummer it was more precious than gold) extraordinarily to the point where actual frost was visible on the tumbler. The delicious cold contents of that tumbler disappeared rapidly, and the tumbler was as rapidly refilled. He checked himself abruptly when he found himself talking a little too loudly and dogmatically regarding some point of trivial importance. He was glad to catch Gerard’s eye and withdraw as gracefully as he could; he was also glad that Gerard seemed perfectly cool and sober and had charge of the cardcase, dropping the necessary number of cards into the silver trays that the coloured butlers held out to receive them. By the time he reached Sharpe’s house he was glad to see a friendly face—friendly even though it was only that morning that he had first set eyes on it.
“It is an hour before the guests are due to arrive, My Lord,” said Sharpe. “Would Your Lordship care for a short rest?”
“I would indeed,” said Hornblower.
Mr. Sharpe’s house had a contrivance which merited much attention. It was a douche bath—Hornblower only knew the French name for it. It was in a corner of the bathroom, floored and walled with the most excellent teak; from the ceiling hung an apparatus of perforated zinc, and from this hung a bronze chain. When Hornblower stood under this apparatus and pulled the chain a deluge of delicious cold water came streaming down on him from some unseen reservoir above. It was as refreshing as ever it had been to stand under the wash-deck pump on the deck of a ship at sea, with the additional advantage of employing fresh water—and in his present condition, after his experiences of the day, it was doubly refreshing. Hornblower stood under the raining water for a long time, reviving with every second. He made a mental note to install a similar contrivance at Smallbridge House if ever he found himself at home again.
A coloured valet in livery stood by with towels to save him from the reheating exertion of drying himself, and while he was being dabbed a knock at the door heralded Gerard’s entrance.
“I sent to the ship for a fresh shirt for you, My Lord,” he said.
Gerard was really displaying intelligence; Hornblower put on the fresh shirt with gratitude, but it was with distaste that he tightened his stook and pulled on his heavy uniform coat again. He hung the red ribbon over his shoulder, adjusted his star, and was ready to face the next situation. The darkness of evening was descending, but it had not brought much relief from the heat; on the contrary, the drawing-room of Mr. Sharpe’s house was brightly lit with wax candles that made it feel like an oven. Sharpe was awaiting him, wearing a black coat; his ruffled shirt made his bulky form appear larger than ever. Mrs Sharpe, sweeping in in turquoise blue, was of much the same size; she curtseyed deeply in response to Hornblower’s bow when Sharpe presented him, and made him welcome to the house in a French whose soft tang rang pleasantly on Hornblower’s ears.
“A little refreshment, My Lord?” asked Sharpe.
“Not at present, thank you, sir,” said Hornblower hastily.
“We are expecting twenty-eight guests beside Your Lordship and Mr. Gerard,” said Sharpe. “Some of them Your Lordship already met during Your Lordship’s official calls today. In addition there are—”
Hornblower did his best to keep the list of names in his mind with mental labels attached. Gerard, who came in and found himself a secluded chair, listened intently.
“And there will be Cambronne, of course,” said Sharpe.
“Indeed?”
“I could hardly give a dinner party of this magnitude without inviting the most distinguished foreign visitor, after Your Lordship, present in this city.”
“Of course not,” agreed Hornblower.
Yet six years of peace had hardly stilled the prejudices established during twenty years of war, there was something a little unnatural about the prospect of meeting a French General on friendly terms, especially the late commander-in-chief of Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard, and the meeting might be a little strained because Bonaparte was under lock and key in St. Helena and complaining bitterly about it.
“The French Consul-General will accompany him,” said Sharpe. “And there will be the Dutch Consul-General, the Swedish—”
The list seemed interminable; there was only just time to complete it before the first of the guests was announced. Substantial citizens and their substantial wives; the naval and military officers whom he had already met, and their ladies; the diplomatic officers; soon even that vast drawing-room was crowded, men bowing and women curtseying. Hornblower straightened up from, a bow to find Sharpe at his elbow again.
“I have the honour of making two distinguished figures acquainted with each other,” he said, in French.
“Son Excellence Rear Admiral Milord Hornblower, Chevalier de l’Ordre Militaire du Bain. Son Excellence le Lieutenant-General le Comte de Cambronne, Grand Cordon de la Legion d’Honneur.”
Hornblower could not help being impressed, even at this moment, at the neat way in which Sharpe had evaded the thorny question of whom to introduce to whom, a French General and count and an English Admiral and peer. Cambronne was an immensely tall bean-pole of a man. Across one lean cheek and the beaky nose ran a purple scar—perhaps the wound he had received at Waterloo; perhaps a wound received at Austerlitz or Jena or any other of the battles in which the French Army had overthrown nations. He was wearing a blue uniform covered with gold lace, girt about with the watered red silk ribbon of the Legion of Honour, a vast plaque of gold on his left breast.
“Enchanted to make your acquaintance, sir,” said Hornblower in his best French.
“No more enchanted than I am to make yours, milord,” replied Cambronne. He had a cold, greeny-grey eye with a twinkle in it; a grey cat’s-whisker moustache adorned his upper lip.
“The Baroness de Vautour,” said Sharpe. “The Baron de Vautour, His Most Christian Majesty’s Consul- General.”
Hornblower bowed and said again that he was enchanted. His Most Christian Majesty was Louis XVIII of France, using the Papal title conferred on his house centuries earlier.
“The Count is being mischievous,” said Vautour. He indicated Cambronne’s star. “He is wearing the Grand Eagle, given him during the last regime. Officially the Grand Cordon has been substituted, as our host very properly said.”
