The London bookshop was a wonderland. Interlocking rooms filled with more books than Horatio had seen outside his school's library, on every subject imaginable. Tomes from across Europe, and even the Americas could be found, along with British authors both high and low. Broadsheets and pamphlets lay in piles, alongside tooled leather works with gilt lettering.
Their most important task was deciding on the right gift for Kennedy. While Anne knew her brother's taste better than Horatio could on such short acquaintance, he presumed to know more about Archie's present mind. At least he hoped the bitterness, black gloom, and reckless hedonism were unknown to the Kennedys and this kind, merry sister in particular. The vicious cause of all Archie's turmoil might be gone now, but the effects lingered. Hornblower had had evidence of that just the night before.
In this capacity of guardian he made bold to veto a lovely hand-colored printing of Blake's newest work that Anne picked up soon after entering the store. Much as Kennedy was fond of the poet, an etching, however lovely, dwelling on the death of innocence and innocence of death would not do his friend good. By mutual agreement, Horatio and Anne parted ways soon after, he to delve into adventure and history, she to find every new novel of note.
Horatio did attempt to keep his mind on his mission, seeking out likely naval records and atlases that might appeal to Kennedy's love of adventure. But once deciding on his selections, Hornblower found himself inevitably at a shelf of mathematicians and philosophers, fingering a translation of Euclid's Elements. His own, stolen and dropped in the head was still an ache in his heart. It had been his grandfather's and he had tried to retrieve it, befouled as it was, but the book had been irrecoverable. A new copy would be a chance to put that awful memory behind him, and perhaps many others.
But he felt his purse-too thin-and knew he could not. He must replace the shirt lost to Simpson's predations, and purchase more stockings, and set aside a sum, somehow to add to the wardroom table. Though he sensed that Miss Kennedy's orders on her brother's behalf were more than usually generous-Justinian's gun room had certainly not eaten so well-Horatio did not want to arrive on the Indefatigable looking stingy, or poor, or taking advantage of his wealthier friend. He must find funds enough for a few bags of coffee and sugar, at least, or bottles of wine. Euclid must wait.
Feeling the weight of temptation too hard upon him, Horatio sought out Miss Kennedy, but could not find her where he'd left her. He searched through the store, and became turned about in the maze of shelves and stacks. Passing a table devoted to the Bard, Horatio hesitated at a slim volume of sonnets. When he had been weeping over his Euclid in the cable tiers, Archie had found him, and commiserated over the loss of just such a book to Simpson's pettiness.
It had been an odd quarter watch, stolen together, Archie declaiming pretty verses, then inducing him to recite in turn mathematical theorems. They had ended laughing, reminded of what Jack could not take from them. And yet the man had, in the end, taken something more precious, their ease and comfort with one another. Their friendship. Or perhaps he had ruined that, with his ill-timed kisses and mad determination to die because of them.
Horatio opened the pages, thumbing through until he found one whose rhythm he could faintly remember, from lips mobile with emotion.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste
It might be an apology, after a fashion, even if he could not articulate why one was needed. He weighed the little book in his hand, even checked the cost penciled lightly on the first page, before, finally, reluctantly, placing it back. He could no more bear the expense than that to replace his Euclid. And his offenses could not be forgiven, because they were extant-not past, but very much still present.
Moving on, he finally caught site of Miss Kennedy, again. She was intently perusing a French book with a most surprising title, Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne. It seemed rather Republican for the daughter of an Earl and sister to men fighting France over its revolutionary fervor. Perhaps she was conscious of it, for she set the book down immediately, adopting a bright smile, once she realized his presence.
"Have you found anything for Arch, Mr. Hornblower? I think he would like either of these." Anne had found a few plays she thought her brother would approve of, The Follies of the Day and-just out-The Road to Ruin both by Thomas Holcroft. Horatio was unfamiliar, but when he learned they were comedies, he nodded his approval.
"You have already chosen well, but I had some thoughts, if you wanted to reconsider, Miss Kennedy." He led the way back through the warren, to a small section devoted to American authors. He had found a description of the West Indies, by a Scottish gentlewoman born there, newly published, with the intimidating title of Voyage to the Madeira and Leeward and Caribbean Isles, with Sketches of the Natural History of these Islands. Horatio recalled the evening daydreaming of the tropics as Heather told his tales before their orders had come through, and thought it might please Archie. They were unlikely to venture there soon, tied to a fighting frigate with war on the Continent looming. He had certainly enjoyed the passages he'd read himself, and was eager to take in the whole journey.
Less selfishly, he pointed out a novel whose name had caught his eye, Modern Chivalry. It was a romantical name for a satirical book. The author, a Hugh Branckenridge, had chosen as setting the frontier of Pennsylvania, in some ways even more exotic than the Indies. Anne took a few minutes to peruse the books herself, then smiled, and thanked Horatio, and took them both and the plays besides. Horatio felt a little faint at this casual evidence of wealth, his own poverty more acute as he accompanied Miss Kennedy to the front where she paid the charges without a blink.
"Will you not take any new books home to Kent, Mr. Hornblower?" Anne inquired with surprise, as she waited to have her purchases wrapped in brown paper for security. "Surely there is something here of interest." Her hand indicated the bookshop, indeed drowning in books to intrigue him, beyond just the Euclid he longed for so sentimentally.
Horatio flushed, embarrassed to name the reason for his restraint, until he found an acceptable answer. "I have a long journey, and would not wish the weight of more books, when there are sufficient waiting for me at home." Mostly anatomy and medical texts, and discussions of the proper care of a garden, but the library was indeed plentifully laden, for a country doctor's home. "I shall enjoy Mr. Kennedy's collection when we are both aboard the Indefatigable."
"It will make his pleasure in these gifts the greater, then. I know a taste for literature wasn't common among his shipmates." She smiled up at him with a tenderness Horatio did not deserve, conscious of how often he had thought Archie frivolous to be reading dramas when the boy could be studying trigonometry instead. "Now," she plunked the books into his arms, smiling at the burden all her packages made on him. "I believe you were promised a coffee shop."
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