Horatio was rescued from a second awkward tour of Captain Kennedy's ships by the noisy arrival of Lord Kennedy with wife and infant child.
The eldest son of the earl and countess was not even ten years older than Hornblower, but seemed quite in command of everything. However Archie and Arch might have looked as children, the family resemblance was not strong now. They shared sunlight kissed hair, and the same nose, even to the tendency to scrunch up while deep in thought. But the elder had a broader face, with more height and weight all over, and a voice as large as his form, booming across the entry hall. And while the young lord had a rough appeal, Horatio thought his friend was better favored. In fact, seeing them all together, though the family was generally blessed with fine appearances, the fourth Kennedy son was undoubtedly more handsome than any of the others.
While they were waiting to greet the arrivals, Archie explained that the earl's heir was a captain in the 2nd Dragoons, usually stationed in the north on home duty near the family seat of the earl, Culzean Castle. Hornblower thought Arch's physique must be quite the strain on the horses. Lord Kennedy looked the part of a cavalry officer, certainly, dressed in a smart red uniform, sword at the side, and more brawny, brown and florid than the other brothers. The first news out of the arrival's mouth before even greeting Archie, was that Lord Kennedy's troop had just been put on alert to prepare for deployment. Even as the navy was gearing up for war, so too were the army. The 2nd Dragoons might be called up at any time for foreign action in the low countries.
This announcement caused sufficient dismay as to overset the entire crowd of Kennedys. In between cooing over the next Kennedy generation, whom the grandparents, and London aunts and uncles had not previously met, the ladies began discussing whether Lady Kennedy (another Margaret) should stay home with the child, or go to stay with family. The countess, naturally, was urging her daughter-in-law to come to the City for the duration. The men for their part, began to talk war, taxes, and whether Edward, Katherine's husband, would also soon be called up with his regiment.
In the tumult, Archie was barely remembered and Horatio quite forgotten. After some hurried introductions, he stood awkwardly in the hall for some minutes, before retreating to his room. If he had been asked, he would have complained of a desire to rest before the anticipated family supper that evening, but the relatives were busy enough with each other to make no notice of his retiring. Even Archie, seeing him slip up the stairs, only gave Horatio a sheepish shrug, before approaching the nursemaid to make a closer acquaintance with the newest member of the Kennedys, a fat little sausage named, unsurprisingly, Archibald.
Hornblower intended to spend his time becoming acquainted with one of the naval tomes the earl had pressed on him. But he found himself too distracted to read. Instead he roamed restlessly around the room, looking out the windows, and then finally at the fittings of the room itself. His father's home was comfortable, but simple. Plaster walls and English oak and no decorations save the few pictures his mother had hung in the years before her decline and death. The Hornblower parlor was not half so fine as this, the smallest of the Kennedys' bedrooms.
Today's tales of the earl's exploits indicated that much of the Kennedy wealth had been from the capture of prizes during the Seven Years War, but they had forfeited some of that when forced to flee New York. The fortune must have been vast, for if Archie had grown up in this room, the house must have been purchased long before the captain became Earl of Cassilis, while the family was still recovering from their American losses. The bed's draperies were, as Horatio had thought on that first night, a lush green velvet, and the canopy posts some species of wood more exotic than he had experience of. Examination of the carved paneling on the lower half of the wall led him eventually to the similarly marked mahogany wardrobe. Horatio opened the doors to peer inside at the contents, which Archie had plundered so confidently, very quick to leave the naval uniform behind.
It was fitted with shelves, where more clothes than Horatio had owned in his life were piled in neat stacks. A dozen linen shirts, some with lace sewn on, others awaiting cuffs, lay snowy and soft on one shelf. Horatio, who secretly admired fashionable dress though he had not the purse, occasion, or figure to indulge in it himself, couldn't keep from touching the finest, and wondering how it would look and feel to wear. Two more shelves were taken up just in breeches and trousers, all in good repair and made up in rich cloths. Most of the garments were in sober colors except for one gorgeous and startling set of breeches in deep purple silk shot with threads of orange to make it shimmer like a beach fire. It had a matching coat, glimmering with silver embroidery and buttons. Horatio could not imagine his friend in such an ostentatious outfit, and wondered at the reason for it.
Beyond that, Archie seemed to favor only the occasional fancy waistcoat in vivid shades or closely embroidered. A small flash of color hidden beneath brown, blue, and gray jackets, like the red breast of a robin peeking through. Even those were outnumbered by the white and beige and muddy yellow; truly Kennedy had a dizzying number of vests. There were shoes aplenty as well, and riding boots, and one pair of heels in the old French style, purple with silver buckles and what he thought were paste jewels. They would match that intriguing suit well. Of naval dress, though, Horatio could find nothing, save a forgotten black stock crumpled at the back behind rows of white and cream.
Having investigated the interior thoroughly, there remained only the two deep drawers at the bottom. One of these stored extra blankets, and a padded silk robe that looked luxuriantly comfortable. The other held some sentimental items. Guilt at the intrusion warred with a desire to know more of his bewildering friend—and honor lost. A tiny white gown. A stuffed animal, species indecipherable, made from a patchwork of fabrics with one remaining button eye. A diminutive pair of knee breeches. A bible, warped from water. A battered and much repaired blue coat, that Horatio was sure he recognized. And beneath that a few sketch books, and a loose collection of art bound in a paperboard folder.
Just as his hand was hovering over the contents of the drawer, there was a knock at the hallside door. Before he could do more than stand and shove it mostly closed with a foot, Betsy was entering, a tray in her hands. "Lady Anne thought you might care for some refreshment, to tide you over until supper, sir, though you are also welcome to join the family at tea?" Looking at the array of sandwiches and scones on the tray, and catching the distinct scent of coffee, not tea from the steaming pot, gave Horatio no reason to dare the mass of Kennedys waiting below.
He managed some polite response about the countess's thoughtfulness, and happily took the tray to the desk. But once the maid had left, and hearing nothing from the other room, Horatio could not resist returning to the wardrobe, and gathering up the art to bring to the desk as well. As he sipped and ate, he paged through the sketchbooks, opening each in turn and examining them by the clear afternoon light. Horatio could track the age by the skill of the brush and pen as much as the sights shown and what he had constructed of Kennedy's journeys. The oldest pad was larger, and contained hesitant scrawls of a cat, a servant sitting in a chair, a face Horatio thought was meant to be Lady Anne. Mixed in with growing steadiness were bowls of fruit and park landscapes, and other subjects Hornblower thought must be assigned exercises from some past tutor.
The smaller books were all of the sea. By the time young Archie had started on the first modest tome, beginning with a proud and carefully worked depiction of a small frigate being loaded, there was enough legibility for Hornblower to make out, for example, that it was a frigate, not a sloop or a ship of the line. The Guardian, he supposed. Many of the pages had been stuck together, or otherwise ruined by water, and it looked as though others had been cut out. But a scattering were saved, awkward portraits of ratings and officers, cows in a hold, and ports with a Mediterranean look to their hillsides. The last of this set was only an echo left behind in blues and whites and greens, bleeding through stuck pages in the vague outline of a mountain. Some of the end pages, those not cut out, contained the only clear pictures. People somewhat better wrought, but in pen alone, no color, heavily hatched to convey black skin. A wide stretch of beach with a wreck on it, viewed from a hill above. A cliffside fort with cannons, seen from the ocean.
The next books had not been immersed in the sea. Damaged only from rough use, most of the pages were intact and heavily marked with notes as well as drawings, with only a few cut out. The vast majority of the leafs were taken up with depictions of beaches and ports, from oceanside and often paired with a birds' eye version, showing depth of water and lines of sea wall. But amid, sometimes even in the margins of these navigational aids, were quick little sketches of shipboard life, better executed than those from the Guardian, but with a similar instinct for little tableaus and details of face and expression.
One in particular showed some actual talent. A full page, eye-catching portrait of a man Horatio thought for a moment was meant to be the earl. But it was only that the subject had piercing blue eyes, and strong handsome features that showed the same naval weathering. The man had a commanding bearing, staring directly and rather impatiently out of the page. Though no insignia of rank was visible—the man was sitting in shirt sleeves with a loosened stock—Horatio thought this must be an officer, and someone Kennedy had known well, to paint so precisely and with such intimacy. As with most of the drawings, it was unlabeled and undated, so Horatio eventually turned the page. Since he had not asked permission to view these books, and Archie rarely volunteered information about the past, the man's identity was yet another mystery he would likely never solve.
Once the progression of dockside figures in the landscapes had shifted from deep brown to lighter, and the clothing from the styles of Africa to India, Horatio found a sketch of a port that seemed familiar. Looking up at the wall, Hornblower realized it was the model for that larger, more carefully executed Indian harbor painting that hung there. The art grew scarce and slapdash after that. In the later pages, after a diagram he thought was meant to explain the transit of ships during a battle, were several leafs exploding with hurried scrawls, barely more than impressions of movement forced out onto the page. A crew loading a cannon; men boarding a ship, swords raised; a body slumped on a barrel, missing an arm at the shoulder; a ship in the distance, a mast lost and lowering its flags.
The final pages were somewhat sparse, and more of these pages were missing, some torn, not cut. In one sketch, crammed beneath a hurried chart of a chain of islands (he used the geography book to identify it as the Maldives), Horatio was surprised by a familiar face in a familiar scene. Men, clustered around a mess table, their features made sharp with shadows. And in the center, cradling a violin, was Clayton. Horatio studied what he could see of the other figures, but could not be sure he recognized any. Certainly they did not seem to be the other midshipmen from the Justinian. So Archie had served with their lost comrade before. It made the boy's callous indifference to or even urging of Clayton's death the more inexplicable. Why should Kennedy have so much resentment of the musician—who had always treated the sickly mid with more caring than any of the others—enough to trick or force the older man to fight that duel, to save him who the boy had known scarce above a month? Yet another puzzle. Doubtless he would not have enjoyed knowing the answer anyway.
Horatio closed the last journal with a sigh, and set them all aside, clearing the dishes from the desk as well before investigating the folder of loose artwork. These were as a collection far superior to most of the sketches in the journals. The subjects were rarely naval, though there were a few other ports of call, likely painted from rougher originals or memory. Kennedy seemed to favor the cacophony of activity as inspiration. A family portrait, half finished, was the most ambitious in the folder. The earl glared out, seeming displeased with the lack of paint. Some domestic scenes, playing with light or color were fine enough to hang, if it would not be strange to frame a painting of one's kitchen staff hard at work on a fancy meal. A man with John's eyes and Kennedy's nose in the red coat of an army officer was clearly Lord Kennedy, though the man was not quite so dashing in the flesh. And unsurprisingly, there was a charming, posed depiction of Anne, in the garden, wearing a summer frock and looking all sunlight and laughter.
Most of the rest were evidently from the theater. The medium changed with the subject matter, not watercolor but charcoal and pastels. Some were barely more than sketches, but evocative, the pigment laid down with vigorous, sure broad strokes. Others Kennedy had labored over, thick with color and detail. The topics were mostly the actors, but never on the stage. Archie preferred to capture them working on lines, applying makeup and costume, or drinking together in a pile of scenery. Some vignettes were more intimate, a woman tying another's corset, a prostitute with rouged nipples and open legs sprawled drunk on a couch, two figures kissing in the shadows. Horatio lingered over this one because he could not decide which was the man and which the woman, and whether either was Kennedy.
Many of the best were posed. Lovely girls and boys, old men and crabbed women, some actors, others seeming more their hangers on, each sitting for a portrait in a dressing room or bit of set. Looking at several together, Horatio realized that most of the people seemed happy. Laughing or at least smiling, proud or shy, but looking with pleasure at the artist. Kennedy made him feel that way, too, damn the boy. Despite that he might want to thrash his friend at times or shake those broad shoulders until all the secrets tumbled out, Horatio suspected that just the same foolish grin or eager focus could be found on his own face whenever Archie chose to shine light his way, or favor him with attention.
The last in the stack was the finest. Another portrait of a handsome man, beautiful even. With a wide mouth, partially obscured by the fingers resting against the man's lips. It reminded him of something, and then Horatio remembered the little sketch of himself, drawn into a letter, looking nothing like him really, all classical features and large dark eyes. For all that it seemed Kennedy was an avid artist, Horatio realized all at once that it was the only time on Justinian he had caught Archie at drawing beyond necessary scrawls for navigation. Perhaps it had not been himself prompting Kennedy's pen, but his passing resemblance to this man.
The subject was staring at the artist with evaluation, but there was humor too, one cheek just starting to dimple with a smile, and a brooding heavy weight in the carefully inked eyes that seemed to know things Horatio could only guess at. An actor, no doubt, both from the context of the other sketches and the suggestion here of a costume, and lines about the eyes that seemed more than just black lashes, adding to the intensity of the stare. There was a femininity to the fineness of feature, but the expression was all confidence and command, no shyness.
He could see the shadow of initial sketching in pastel or charcoal, but the portrait must have been taken away to finish from memory. The careful lines and delicate wash of ink grading from light into shadow could not have been done quickly. It was, of course, undated and unlabeled. Horatio wondered who the man had been, and what he had been—or was—to Kennedy. A friend, surely. With a surge of melancholy for the boy who once painted with such care and admiration, Horatio put the whole folder of art away again in the drawer, stacking the sketchbooks back atop as well. Perhaps he would meet the actor at the theater Kennedy was so determined to get back to. The idea left him cold for reasons he didn't want to explore.
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