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Lady Barbara Wellesley and Horatio Hornblower
From: PDA
Date: 20/05/03
Time: 18:35:41
Remote Name: 204.213.35.26
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I am writing to this forum with a boldness born of a foolish desperation. I have never been a reader of romance novels, nor have I ever been a devotee of soap operas. The introduction to this subject may be so convoluted as to negate any hope of your interest, but I hope to make a literate attempt.
While I have maintained a passion for the character Lady Barbara Wellesley and her potential -- sadly, my passion without ability and talent is just frustrating, embarrassing, amateurish, and ultimately does no justice to the character or the passion. I am not a writer, just possessed by the idea of this character’s own story.
The 11 books in the Horatio Hornblower saga written over a period of roughly 30 years (1938-1966) by Cecil Scott Forester present a fascinating, yet sometimes exasperating main character who embodies a favorite Forester theme, the “man alone” whose actions may be heroic, but often do nothing to alter the inexorable tide of history. The books were not written in the chronological order of Hornblower’s career, were often serialized in magazines, and several of them (Beat to Quarters, Flying Colors, and Lord Hornblower) were meant to end the story although Forester (also known as author of The African Queen) continued to return to this character until his death. With the exception of Lieutenant Hornblower, the novels unfold from the main character’s point of view.
This popular series originally aimed at a male audience with its vivid depictions of life and death during the Napoleonic Wars, has great appeal to female audiences with its introspective main character and intriguing, although few female characters. The most intriguing of these, yet least satisfactorily written about, is Lady Barbara Wellesley, fictional sister of the Duke of Wellington.
She (and, indeed, most of the characters) is introduced in the first novel, Beat to Quarters (UK title: The Happy Return). Hornblower, unhappily married to a plain, unimaginative woman of his own class slowly becomes obsessed by Barbara during her passage on his ship and by what she represents – social position, political connections, power, wealth, success, confidence. Near the end of the voyage and attracted to him, Barbara offers her love and he is so embarrassed by the possibility of his officers’ rude gossip, that he awkwardly rebuffs her.
Forester throws many obstacles in the way of Barbara and Hornblower’s relationship – not the least of which is his marriage, loveless though it may be. Barbara is wealthy and of a much higher social class – he is poor and has no connections; she is musical – he is completely and even painfully tone-deaf; she is an excellent horsewoman – he does not enjoy riding; she is naturally gracious and at ease during ceremonial and social functions – he despises them. Physically, Barbara is not the type of woman who usually appeals to him. She is somewhat like a feminine version of the Duke of Wellington – tall, athletic, and is not considered a conventional beauty by the standards of the day. When they first meet, she appears “horse-faced” and “mannish” to him; by the end of Beat to Quarters, he is moved by her “classic beauty.” Yet there is a mutual respect and a mutual physical attraction. Hornblower is not a typical “avast-me-hearties,” girl-in-every-port, womanizing swashbuckler; he is not particularly handsome, nor has he any delusions about his looks, but he is unselfconsciously attractive.
By the next novel, Ship of the Line, sort of on the rebound she has married his superior officer, a titled admiral, and meets Hornblower and his wife at a dinner given by her husband for his officers and their wives. She is kind, and although Hornblower’s admiration for her grows, she does nothing that might provoke scandal. He continues to dwell on her throughout this novel and the next (Flying Colors), although she is now more unobtainable than ever. At the end of Flying Colors, his way to her has been made clear by a series of circumstances; however, those circumstances have made the attainment of his several goals, including freedom to wed Lady Barbara, not the unalloyed pleasure he expected. Indeed, the last brief chapter of Flying Colors lays the distressing groundwork for Lord Hornblower, the book that follows Commodore Hornblower.
Commodore Hornblower opens with a brief glimpse of their married life together. She is polished, poised, affectionate, and knowing; he often feels awkward in her presence. He is haunted by thoughts of her first marriage, and irrationally worries that she may not love him as much as she loved her first husband. Their affinity for one another is strong; he feels she is the “lovable companion and the companionable lover.” However, during his assignment in the Baltic, he has a meaningless one-night encounter with a Russian countess resulting in his contracting typhus and nearly dying.
Lord Hornblower and the last book (in terms of the main character’s career), Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, pose the most serious problems with Hornblower and Barbara, and are behind the distress which has prompted me to write to you in what must seem to you to be a most bizarre manner. In Lord Hornblower, Hornblower has achieved everything he wanted – but wants it no more now that he has it, and he is even irked by everything associated with his success, including Barbara. Barbara, who had met his first wife, had adopted their surviving child while she remains childless herself (she and Hornblower never have children of their own), now meets Marie de Graçay, the woman who helped save Hornblower’s life in Flying Colors and now becomes his grand passion in his middle age (he is nearly 40 in this book, with Barbara about 34, and Marie about 30). Lord Hornblower deals with the subject of betrayal on many levels, and could almost be subtitled, “Hornblower and the Mid-Life Crisis.”
His adulterous affair with Marie while Barbara is gone fulfilling her duties as hostess for her brother at the glittering, scandalous Congress of Vienna is one of true love and passion. It is made more painful for me in that his infidelity is described in such beautiful language. With Marie there is no competition, no society, no duties, no feelings of inferiority – just him, Marie, and sex. Their passions are pure, but profane; profane, but never vulgar…and there is never such a beautiful passion described for Hornblower and Barbara. This has made me weep for Barbara who is an intelligent woman and probably has guessed at his infidelity, as Hornblower himself reflects while awaiting his execution in the last pages of Lord Hornblower. It is not the adultery, per se, that eats at me; it is that there are real feelings of love in this instance, with nothing of a reconciliation or a rediscovery of his love for Barbara after the affair is over.
He blames no one else but himself for his folly which costs Marie’s life and nearly his own. His last thoughts turn to memorable moments in his life, and although the final word in the book is “Barbara,” they have parted with a coldness between them. Forester, a man given to many infidelities throughout his lifetime, does not choose to address in another novel how their estrangement could have been resolved – how their love and passion could have been rekindled. In a brief passage in his essay published in The Hornblower Companion (1964), he only says this about their relationship following Hornblower’s affair with Marie de Graçay:
“I came to the conclusion that after the frightful tragedy of Marie de Graçay, and his own terrifying experience, Hornblower must have gone back with considerable relief to Barbara, who, undoubtedly, would have enough understanding and kindness to make him welcome. I could well imagine it; I could imagine those two proud people, both of them reluctant to merge their personalities, finding that such a thing was at least possible, with mutual respect coming to reinforce mutual attraction.”
It sounds rather too neat and tidy, entirely too one-sided, and not very satisfying. Yet, phrases and passages continue to haunt me months after reading Lord Hornblower:
“…in his (Hornblower’s) arms he could feel her beautiful body limp and yielding despite the fine muscles (the product of hard riding and long walking) which he had at last educated himself to accept as desirable in woman, whom he had once thought should be soft and feeble.” (Barbara)
“Sometimes Barbara found herself kissing his hands, the long beautiful fingers whose memory sometimes haunted her nights when they were separated, and it was a gesture of the purest passion without symbolism.”
“Their spirits rushed together as their eyes met…. They were more united than they had ever been before, and they knew it, the fortunate pair.” (Barbara)
“He wanted to take Marie to him, to feel her rich flesh in the circle of his arms, to forget his troubles and doubts and disillusionments in the intoxication of her embrace; just as four years ago he had found oblivion there, selfishly.”
“Marie was waiting for him, weighted down with longing, heavy with love, tender and sweet. To sink into her arms was to sink into peace and happiness, illimitable peace, like that of a sunset-lit sea.”
“For Hornblower respect and love made a heady mixture – he felt he could kneel to her as to a saint.” (Marie)
(To Hornblower’s mind) “This was love unalloyed and without reservations. There was an ecstasy in giving and no amazement in receiving.” (Marie)
“… while his spirit tossed on wave after wave of emotion, of remorse and self-condemnation, of fear and regret, uncertainty and despair, his love for her endured and increased, so that her name was in his mind as a constant accompaniment to his thoughts, so that her image was in his mind’s eye whatever else he was picturing. Dear Marie, sweet, beloved Marie.”
“…and he had failed. Failed everywhere; failed in war, failed in love, failed with Barbara – God, why did he think of Barbara?”
“Still young, beautiful, wealthy, well-connected; of course she (Barbara) would (remarry after his death). Oh God, that added to the pain, to think of Barbara in another man’s arms, laughing with the joy of it. And yet he had lain in Marie’s. Oh, Marie.”
Years (and several other books) later, Forester issued Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies. The actions in this collection of largely unconnected stories are set 6 years after the ending of Lord Hornblower, with Hornblower finishing a 3-year tour of duty in the West Indies and with Barbara remaining with his small son (by his first wife) in England. Everything seems just fine. There is no mention of any strain between them, no reference to Marie de Graçay, nor the ordeal he suffered before Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo (ironically, at the hands of Hornblower\'s brother-in-law). It is treated in this book as if none of this ever happened. Barbara is warmly affectionate in her letters and in person when she joins him at his post in Jamaica as his naval assignment ends. His only problem is his remaining jealousy of her dead first husband, and Forester resolves that issue in a dramatic, though one-sided fashion.
It is almost embarrassing to read in Admiral Hornblower… when Barbara tearfully confesses the clever little subterfuge she plays on Hornblower which results in a man’s life spared, when one recalls his enormous betrayal of her in Lord Hornblower which resulted in a woman’s death. His infidelity is never mentioned. Their reconciliation is never mentioned. Which brings me to another problem with the Barbara/ Hornblower relationship as Forester has left it. In Admiral Hornblower…, Barbara constantly reassures him in her letters and in person of her love for him. Whether Hornblower feels any great love or passion for her is mostly taken for granted -- perhaps, because this may have been considered typical behavior for men of Forester’s generation, not necessarily men of Hornblower’s generation.
As an aside and an observation I find odd, Hornblower never voluntarily or from any true emotion tells any of the women in his life that he loves them. Regardless of the intensity of his internalized feelings, at best the women he loves get only a “My love! My darling!” or a “My darling! My love!” or a “Dearest!” In Flying Colors, only at Marie’s prompting does he say “I love you, dear” out of kindness; and at that early stage of their affair, they both know it is not true. Even at the height of his passions with Marie in Lord Hornblower, he does not say those magic words though his thoughts are clearly there. Those simple words become even more glaringly absent in Admiral Hornblower… as every reassurance from Barbara goes unanswered by him.
Therein lies a tale. How do these two proud people rediscover their passion for each other? Barbara is a smart woman, and probably knows that Hornblower had been in love with Marie de Graçay when she meets her, simply from his agitation when he introduces them. While she is in Vienna and receives his letter saying that he is visiting the Comte de Graçay and his daughter-in-law, the Vicomtesse (Marie), it is certain that Barbara knows the real reason for his visit. What of her experience in Vienna? Forester says nothing of that. Would she indulge in an affair of her own, or would her love and loyalty to him prevail despite her suspicions of his fidelity? How do they feel as they greet each other the first time after the emotional upheaval he’s been through (or she’s been through)? What prompts them to resume intimate relations, and what would their first sexual encounter after the horrible death of Marie be like? How do they regain their mutual love and respect? Forester simply assumed it without any further thought, but there is a story there – their story.
Barbara has too much potential as a character and deserves more out of this than to be relegated to the cardboard figure of wronged-but-understanding wife or to be treated as just a “trophy wife”. She deserves more than to be second-best to a French ghost. She deserves a reciprocity of the passions she feels for this strange lonely man. She deserves to learn that while men may admire and worship goddesses, they make love to women. Hornblower, that introspective, self-tortured, flawed soul, needs to bury Marie de Graçay both literally and figuratively, and to reawaken his love and desire for Barbara. Hornblower deserves a closure to his intensely passionate affair with Marie, and a rebirth of his need, spiritually and physically, for Barbara. He deserves to learn that Barbara is a loving, feeling woman instead of some ideal he has placed on a pedestal, far above him. How this would come about, I haven’t a coherent clue; just a burning hope that someone of experience, taste, and talent could reunite them in a mature, adult, yet sensitive, addition to the saga.
When I have spoken with others familiar with these books about this inequity of passions between the books Lord Hornblower and Admiral Hornblower…, the thoughts are usually along the lines of, “Oh, well, Hornblower made a mistake. It’s a ‘man thing.’” I’ve also gotten this same response from a professor who has written a study about the Hornblower saga. He admitted that his study included very little about the women, and nothing about the cavalier way in which Forester treats the character of Lady Barbara. His “It’s a man thing” is almost as dismissive as Forester’s own attitude.
Another author, C. Northcote Parkinson, a great admirer of Forester’s work and especially the Hornblower saga, attempted to fill in the many gaps in the overall story by producing his own book, The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower. This work, first published in 1970 just 4 years after Forester’s death, is cleverly written in the style of a serious scholarly biography as if Hornblower were an actual historical figure. Parkinson attempts his own speculation about Hornblower and Barbara’s relationship following the Marie de Graçay affair, but the treatment is dry, academic, and does not really ring true for the characters. It isn’t Barbara’s story, but it is a better attempt than Forester’s non-resolution.
If you have managed to read through to this point, I heartily thank you for your time and patience. My purpose in writing to the forum about the character of Lady Barbara and her literary neglect at the hands of her creator is, I would dare hope, that some talented writer might also be affected by the relationship between these two proud, strong characters, and perhaps be inspired to write a novel examining how they could have rekindled their love, desire, and respect for each other in the three years between Waterloo and his departure for the West Indies. A suggested title could be Lady Hornblower.
The entire Hornblower saga is so riveting, so well-written, that I feel that Barbara’s story (as well as Hornblower’s) following the intensity of Lord Hornblower deserves a serious literary treatment from an experienced, serious author. It certainly deserves better than the sophomoric scribblings reminiscent of the most puerile “fan fiction.” I unabashedly realize that I am no “teller of stories” and am only too glad to give this idea to the forum.
I have tried to organize thoughts concerning Lady Barbara and Horatio’s story between the two C. S. Forester books, Lord Hornblower and Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies. The following is what I have come up with so far:
Thoughts on possible character/plot developments following Lord Hornblower:
Horatio: > he and the elderly Comte de Graçay retrieve Marie’s body to bury it in the family crypt at the Chateau de Graçay next to her late husband – provides sense of finality about his love for Marie
> his thoughts return to Barbara – have they drifted too far apart?—does she want him?—does he want her? (Of course, they ultimately do want each other– very physical stuff…) – his realization that Barbara is still exciting and attractive to him and that he still needs her love and approval, not just for his career but also for his personal well-being
> what would bring Barbara off her “pedestal” and make her more of a “woman” to him?—(“It is better to love a woman than a goddess.”) -- his coming to grips with his ideas of class division and his own proud isolation might help with this…
> his stagnated career following Waterloo…Barbary Pirates episode with Lord Exmouth (his former commander) as outlined in C. Northcote Parkinson’s The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower –is this a useful storyline?
Barbara: > what exactly IS she doing at the glittering, scandalous Congress of Vienna? Section describing her duties and delights and worries while in Vienna. Does she become involved in a political or even a personal intrigue? What outlets (or perhaps vices) might she indulge to provide release from tensions, duties, and being “in the spotlight” as her brother’s (Wellington’s) hostess much of the time?
> makes the acquaintance of the Russian Countess (who had the “encounter” with Horatio in Commodore Hornblower) – Barbara proves as unaccustomed to vodka as Horatio was…?
>when Napoleon escapes to France beginning the Hundred Days, does she accompany her brother, Wellington, to Belgium – OR – does she return to Smallbridge (the small country estate where she and Horatio live)?
>although Barbara is intuitive, tactful, and kind, she is also proud and self-reliant. She is not a goody-goody, either, and can, of course, be capable of doing the wrong thing or making a wrong decision.
> her noted musical ability, particularly with guitar and pianoforte…make more of it with participation in musical gatherings, and her noted grace in dancing – both are activities Horatio is not good at
> she is an accomplished horsewoman and likes to take walks—make more of this; he is not a very good rider – what does she see, think about on these walks, rides…
> perhaps, she cultivates roses at Smallbridge; not on the scale of Empress Josephine’s “Malmaison,” but a rose garden she takes pleasure in
> unresolved issue of Bush’s death – she and Horatio finally discuss his death; she arranges a memorial service for Bush in London, inviting Bush’s mother and sisters
>as a result of the memorial service and her own experience in adopting Richard (Horatio’s young son born of his first wife, Maria), she becomes involved in a seaman’s charity or establishes one
> flashback: 1) her experiences and view of Horatio on HMS Lydia (in Beat to Quarters -- British title: The Happy Return)– why he attracted her; 2) her subsequent marriage to Leighton – what that was like; 3) her friendship with Horatio’s first wife, the gauche Maria Mason, leading to her adoption of their son Richard when Maria dies and everyone thinks Horatio is dead (in Ship of the Line and Flying Colors); 4) her wedding and early married life with Horatio; 5) the events of her visit in France (during Lord Hornblower) and her eventual knowledge that Horatio didn’t want her there; 6) her feelings as their relationship grows more strained, and the chance meeting with the Comte de Graçay and his daughter-in-law, the Vicomtesse (Marie); 7) Barbara’s certainty that the affair between Horatio and Marie was serious love and not a passing infatuation;
> her awakening to her own sensuality and desires, and the realization that she still loves Horatio
> her realization that Horatio is a very emotionally insecure man and that it’s up to her to reassure him that she does still love him
> she quietly confronts him about Marie; those resentments must be exorcised…or, are they just “let go”?
> Barbara and Horatio never have children of their own – perhaps Barbara becomes pregnant, loses the baby tragically and Horatio almost loses her, as well—his love and need for her thrown into sharp relief after so many other loses in his life (too melodramatic?)
Hebe:
Barbara’s maid (a woman of color depicted stereotypically as “sex-hungry” by Forester) does not show up in Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies – what happened to her? Does she marry and leave Barbara’s employ?
Annette & Brown:
Brown’s French bride and daughter of the Comte de Graçay’s cook – she and Brown remain in the household at Smallbridge…Annette is taught to speak English by her husband, Brown (Horatio’s coxswain and valet) and she becomes chief cook for the household—creating her own version of Beef Wellington for her new employers—perhaps, a “Poisson Hornblower”? Annette knew of the depths of the affair between Marie de Graçay and Horatio…how does she respond to Barbara, or Barbara to her…
There should be an interesting, adult story somewhere in here, as Lady Barbara is a most fascinating fictional invention that CSF sadly underused and misused – indeed, practically turned his back on! I truly believe that she could be developed by a skilled writer intimate with the period into a very credible observer both of Horatio and the larger society in which she moved. Surely, someone could do Lady Barbara justice. I'm not looking for a “Jane Austen-wannabe” or a "Regency Romance" or something as completely awash in minutiae as Patrick O'Brian, but certainly there is a story worth inventing for Barbara, her background before Horatio, and her not-always-smooth relationship with him.