This time, Horatio woke as soon as the maid opened the door, sitting upright, and only momentarily disoriented.
"Good morning Mr. Hornblower, sir," she greeted him quietly. "I'll just wake your fire up, and then bring your water. Breakfast will be available in the dining room whenever you are ready, sir. Or I can bring you a tray?"
"That won't be necessary, Miss— Betsy. Thank you," Horatio said, awkwardly, still uncomfortable with the degree of luxury that he enjoyed as the Kennedy's guest. The maid bobbed her head, and proceeded about her work with quick efficiency. Horatio felt terribly foolish in her presence, unable to leave the bed—being still in his night clothes—and not knowing if he should ignore or engage her. It was a relief when she left, the stove starting to crackle from the renewed heat. He got up immediately, and dressed quickly, that she not surprise him in his underclothes on her return. Washed and put into better order, Horatio heard his friend beginning to stir in the next room, and was ready when Archie poked a head in and said they should head down to eat.
Breakfast was a wonder. Three kinds of eggs tempted him, including tiny quail eggs that had been poached in water and wine. There was cured sausage, shaved beef, and bacon enough to have sustained the whole midshipmen's mess for a week. Two different breads had been sliced and toasted, accompanied by a kind of fluffy rich pastry Horatio had never had. Hot chocolate, tea, and a perfectly brewed coffee were all available to wash it all down. Horatio's mouth watered just looking at the abundant sideboard.
Beside him, Archie gave a happy sigh. "I will miss this, Hornblower." Some impulse bade him lay a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder. Archie turned that beatific smile on him for just a moment, before it widened to a grin and they were racing to the stack of plates. Most of the Kennedys were not early risers, it appeared, for he and Archie had the feast to themselves for the first half hour. But as they were filling the china with seconds, Anne and her lady mother came in.
"Good morning, dear Mr. Hornblower, survived the card tables of Brook's I hope?" was Anne's merry, if bewildering greeting.
"I… er…" he stammered, it being too early for him to fully deal with the fairer sex, much less with an example as vivacious as Archie's sister.
Luckily his friend was more awake. "Johnnie didn't let us gamble, more's the pity. Horatio is aces at whist. No, we spent the night engaged in literary pursuits. Truly we did!" The lad protested at his sister and mother's identical looks of skepticism. Horatio nodded solemnly, feeling it his duty to back his friend.
"We have an increase in our family party, Mr. Hornblower," the countess told him as she took her seat at the foot of the table. "My daughter Katherine, and her husband Edward arrived after you left for the evening. They made excellent time from Edinburgh, and decided to push on, as the night was clear and bright.
"Kitty is my eldest sister, she and John are twins. She married just last year. Edward is in the Army, like Arch," Kennedy reminded him. Horatio found the size of his friend's family difficult to keep straight.
"Yes, she took forever to find a husband. Not that I'm complaining, she did find a good one. But that is why I'm only coming out this Season," Anne said philosophically, pouring herself a cup of chocolate and adding a sugar cube.
Horatio had some notion that there was a complicated etiquette around women and being seen at parties and marriage eligibility, but never having sisters, or anything much to do with the young ladies of his town, he knew nothing about it. He was relieved, therefore, when the younger and elder Anne both began to chat avidly with each other on the subject of court dresses and ball invitations, and asked no input from the gentlemen. He did spy, however, an oddly mournful look on his friend's face, Kennedy only picking at the magnificent breakfast, as the boy listened to his mother and sister.
The new arrivals joined them shortly. Lady Katherine, for that was her title, having married a young army officer with a baronetcy to inherit, was a lovely woman of twenty-four. Not as beautiful as her younger sister—Katherine favored the earl more than the countess—she was rather taller, with a very elegant style. Though she paid him little notice beyond courtesies, Horatio thought her quite fine; intelligent, with a more subtle edge to the sarcasm and wit that seemed a Kennedy family trait. She teased Archie about the sea air suiting her brother, and took a seat beside the boy after claiming a hug, with an exclamation at Archie's stature having increased as well as his looks. But after that her attention was claimed by the talk of eligible men, French fashions, and the Queen's preference in necklines.
Her husband Edward, however, was happy to talk to him and Archie and be spared the ladies conversation. Digging into the food with the appreciation of a man who hadn't forgotten field rations, the baronet explained had been on leave from the regiment for some months since marrying but would be returning after this London visit. Archie took the lead in discussing the events in France with the older man, while Horatio observed him more quietly. A jolly man of thirty with a dashing scar along the jaw, the Major was as eager for action as the younger boys. Edward had never see actual warfare, being commissioned after the major battles in the Rebellion had ended. However, he had not the idle look of many rich men, being tall, broad-shouldered, and quite manly even in civilian clothes.
The major had trained most recently in coordination with the Royal Artillery, even taking command of field gun crews during exercises. Horatio could not help but be more animated here, asking a great many questions about sighting and trajectories (upon which he discovered with some embarrassment that his own command of maths was superior to the major's). However, Edward was able to describe quite a bit about the tactics used by cannon crews against ships to the fascinated midshipmen. While on some level the description of when and why they might face hot shot or bar and chain were frightening, the prospect of being under fire, of having to race the cannons of a fort or other enemy, was undeniably thrilling. Horatio filed away every detail the major could provide for later rumination.
At the countess' insistence, the men's discussion of war was eventually curtailed and diverted into the general topic of eligible gentleman. The major was solicited for a listing of fine captains and colonels of his acquaintance regardless that Miss Kennedy was insisting she had no interest in any officer save a naval one. Quite unfairly, Archie kicked Horatio, just then, though Anne immediately clarified, to familial laughter and disapproval, "For then if I do not like my husband, I might scarcely need see him above once in two years!"
Horatio, who had already been uncomfortable with the conversation, had just decided that he might regret eating a last, jam-laden slice of toast, but it would at least give him an excuse to get up from the table. Therefore he was able to recover when directly after assaulting his shin, Archie suddenly quaffed the remaining half-cup of tea in one gulp, stood up, and motioned him upward as well. Joining his friend on his feet, he smiled tightly as Archie made a quick excuse that the boy had promised Horatio a look at the Kennedy library that morning. The reason for the hasty retreat was revealed as they went out, not through the main doorway, but through the servant's door, just as the booming voice of the earl greeted the rest of the room.
Thinking it a bit cowardly, still, Horatio made no comment when their need to avoid Archie's father evidently required them to venture down a steep flight of stairs and into the kitchen. As they wove across the room, a chorus of "Good morning, Master Archie" and accompanying smiles and straightening of caps began. His friend was evidently well known to the staff, despite the absences over the years.
Kennedy even stopped to introduce him to the cook, a short, sturdy older woman with a stern Edinburgh accent who after greeting him with a nod, looked Horatio up and down and then Archie, who straightened as if for inspection. She finally shook her head. "I don't know what they do in that Navy, that they can't keep a young man fed, even anchored at port. It's a scandal," she opined sourly, rich vowels rattling with scorn. Given that his own lankiness was due as much to nature and seasickness as the unappealing, but filling enough meals aboard, Horatio was caught between wanting to apologize and to defend the Admiralty.
Archie just laughed, though, and to Horatio's surprise, stooped to kiss the gray-haired woman on the cheek. "Mr. Hornblower might be a lost cause, he tends to the slyphic, and is rather abstemious in his habits." The boy dropped to a stage whisper, merry eyes meeting Horatio's. "But butter and jellies are his weakness." Straightening up, Archie saluted her. "You'll have your chance to fatten me up, though, Mrs. Mac. A nice plump lamb for the King's slaughter." She snapped her towel at him.
"Enough of that talk, and out of my kitchen. Dodging your da, or trying to catch a look at your cake? No matter, you know where the stairs are, we're going to be run off our feet all day, so don't distract my maids any more, and stay where you belong." Finished with her scold, she turned a marginally softer face toward Horatio, "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hornblower, sir. Don't let this one lead you into trouble, he has a bit of the devil in him." Archie dodged another snap of the towel, grabbed a couple apples from a bowl on the table, and led Horatio through the room, accompanied by the stares and giggles of the scullery staff.
They exited past the butler's pantry where a second tiny stepwell led up to the porter's nook in the townhome's entry. "A longtime family servant, I take it?" Horatio asked as they climbed, rather startled by the woman's acerbic familiarity, but seeing that Archie had found it charming.
"Not so long, she came when I was twelve. But I don't know a growing boy who doesn't make friends with the family cook. She acts all sharpish, but I never went hungry, even when I was meant to." Archie winked, and Horatio gathered that being sent to bed without supper had been a common enough punishment in the Kennedy home. Gentler than some of the others his friend had been given, but apparently no more effective at curing bad behavior. Horatio himself had seldom required correction more stern than his father's accusatory silence or disapproving look.
Once, however, he had been caught three times in one day reading Robinson Crusoe, when he was meant to be studying his Latin. He could never forget the long lecture his father had given, with much sighing over his lack of discipline, even spilling frightening tears of guilt for allowing Horatio to read such distracting trash, for even having it in the library. Then his father had bid him consign the tempting novel to the flames by his own hand. It had been as solemn as a funeral, and left Horatio with an abiding reverence for books, but a fear of their power. To disappoint his father so gravely had made an indelible impression.
This childhood folly was called to memory not by Archie's reference to misbehavior, but by the impressive Kennedy collection. His friend led him into not a large room, but tall, tucked at the back of the house with two stories of paned windows, the curtains partially drawn against the dull gray frosty morning. Before them, a table with a magnificent ship model, under glass, dominated one's first impression of the room. Several others could be found among the bookshelves, which had been built, in shipboard fashion, with not just shelves but an assortment of drawers and glass doors, some latching. Among the books there were displays of other art and artifacts, and in one corner near the fireplace a magnificent desk full of cubbies and with a scroll laid out, the edges held down by crystal paperweights, an old sextant, and two candelabra.
A tight spiral stair wound up to the balcony that wrapped the second floor. There were more books here, each shelf barred by a thin rail as if the house might rock with the waves at any moment and spill the contents to the floor. Doorways nestled between, and one wall was mostly dominated by a large painting of a frigate bearing down on a French trading vessel, on fire and in the midst of striking her colors. Miss Kennedy's profligate purchase of books on behalf of her brother was apparently not unusual for the family. The library must have well over a thousand volumes, between the two floors. Archie hovered just a small ways off as Horatio explored, finding the ground floor dominated by military treatises, histories, books of law and philosophy, and the physical sciences. A small case held books in Latin and Greek, more were in French and Spanish. As he started to mount the stairs, Archie stopped him.
"You won't care for the upper level, Mr. Hornblower. I'm afraid that for the most part that is our novels, plays, and other trivialities, as well as my father's collection of newspapers. It will be of no use to you unless you wish to read in privacy," the boy pointed upward to a niche near the window. "There is a comfortable chair up there, and if you draw the curtain, you'll be quite forgotten." An odd little smile twisted his friend's lips. A memory, perhaps, and one unlikely to be shared.
Horatio pretended not to notice the melancholy, forcing a jolly, wondering tone. "I have no wish of it at present! You have spent much time here, I take it? It puts my own father's library to shame." Horatio was embarrassed as soon as he said it, but there was no surprise in the limitations of a country doctor's bookshelves.
"Whenever the earl isn't about, yes. Though rarely down below." Archie took his arm to steer him toward the window, "But my object in bringing you this morning was actually not literary. Behold, the Blonde. She was my father's favorite ship, captured from the French in 1760 and the Old Man's for the next three years." His friend paused for thought, "Though he was still a young man, then. That's her up there, taking a French Indiaman, the Libertin." Archie waved vaguely at the painting above. "Made da's fortune, what didn't come to him from his wives." Kennedy pulled back the curtains to let more light in on the magnificent model, more than a yard long and half as tall. "Most importantly for you, however—though the rigging is just a little different—is that the Blonde was a fifth-rate frigate. Like the Indefatigable."
Hornblower spent a lovely hour going over the models, the Blonde in great depth, but also the Flamborough a smaller vessel that was the earl's first captaincy, as well as a few of the others. As the earl had so begrudgingly acknowledged, Archie was a fount of facts about rigging, sails, masts, and how boats were constructed, particularly these ships, which the boy had clearly studied often. The models were meticulous mimicries, even to the details of the size, shape, and angle of their sails and ropes.
Each made a marvelous learning aid, far superior to napkins and knives. As Horatio had suspected, there was no such object as a royal spanker, but there were both royals, generally the top-most sail on a mast, and a spanker, a fore-and-aft rigged sail at the stern of the ship used help the ship turn into the wind for tacking. His friend stepped him through each mast several times, quizzing him on their names until Horatio had no hesitation and had mastered all the confusing abbreviations as well. He might not be ready to yell at his crew to "furl the miz't'garns'l!" but at least after a moment or two, he would be able to remember which sail that was.
Amid the drilling, Kennedy also offered some answers to the questions the earl had asked the night before, about sail configurations in various weather. Letting go his irritation that his friend had not spoken up then, Horatio tried to pay attention to the explanations. It seemed there were dozens of factors, from the direction and speed of the wind, the amount and temperature of the rain, the exact construction of the keel, the freeboard of the ship, whether it likely that the gunports would need to be open, and more. Every ship sailed differently, and Kennedy could only talk in approximations from the ships and situations the boy had experienced. Before Justinian, each of Archie's ships had been fifth-rate frigates, apparently, though all with different configuration of guns, and different handling. How the razéed fifth-rate Indefatigable would sail was a mystery still to be discovered.
Watching his friend, Horatio found himself smiling broadly. The affection that Archie clearly had for sailing, for the wind and the movement of the ship, the heave and furl of cloth, made him almost stop dreading the sea sickness and the stench, the difficult men and his own blinding ignorance. Kennedy made him feel it would be fun, a challenge his mind could adapt to, even if his hands might be slow and soft at first.
When the earl came in they were standing before a vast plaque bedecked with every bewildering variation of sailor's knot. Archie had been animatedly gesturing, explaining the construction and intended use of each with a confidence that suggested he had been made to do so many a time in the past. Therefore Horatio noticed first that Kennedy stammered over the difference between the Spanish and Portuguese bowlines, and then some instinct caused him to glance over his shoulder to see his host approaching with a surprisingly soft tread. Archie did not quite cease talking until the stumbling, and slightly confusing explanation had been completed, at which point his friend turned to the earl and gave a perfunctory half-bow.
Horatio began to do the same, with a "Good morning, m'lor—" but was stopped by the old man's hand, gripping his shoulder casually.
"You might do better with a book, Mr. Hornblower and a bit of rope. I believe I have one here…" the man moved past, Archie almost skittering out of the way, to search the bookshelf nearby. "Always useful, for any man aboard, to know how to tie a good knot for the circumstance. But a midshipman should be a master of all the common ones, so that you can see at a glance if a rating has been hasty or slovenly." The earl put decided weight on those words, and Horatio could almost feel his friend draw tighter. "Ship's discipline in all the details is vital. The man who does not secure a rope properly when it does not matter will not remember how to do it when it does."
This seemed to require acknowledgment. "Aye, sir. M'lord!" Horatio felt himself flush.
The earl turned to hand him a book, a slim volume titled Knots of the World. "Study this. And if you care to improve yourself during your leave, you might explore this case, which has the majority of my volumes on practical seamanship. A country doctor, even one who has been to sea, might not have all of these in his library." The heavy weight of those cold, ocean eyes fell over him, flicking up and down in a manner that convinced Horatio he had managed to tie his stock incorrectly or lost a button, and he had to force himself to remain in the quarterdeck pose he had unconsciously adopted in the man's presence.
Apparently he passed the inspection, however, for the earl only grunted and turned back to observe the books. "Take what you like. I doubt they will get any exercise here, and you have the look of a young man who can care for a book." Most statements Captain Kennedy made in the presence of his fourth son had a sharp edge and this was no exception. "Bring them back when you return to London. You will return and head to Portsmouth from here? The coastal road is treacherous in the winter. You're very welcome to stay. Sure the wife would say the same."
"Thank you, your lordship. Likely I will come by London, yes. It's very kind of you to offer—"
The captain dismissed his gratitude with an impatient wave, "Fine, fine. Now, has Alexander shown you the Blonde? French-built, but a fine ship, excellent handling…"
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