“That’s what it may be.”
“Oh!” Maria’s face revealed her distress. “Oh!”
Her eyes searched their faces.
“No need to worry, Miss Maria,” said Bush. “It’ll be many a long year before Boney brings his flatbottoms up Spithead.”
“It’s not that,” said Maria. Now she was looking only at Hornblower. In a flash she had forgotten Bush’s existence.
“You’ll be going away!” she said.
“I shall have my duty to do if I am called upon, Maria,” said Hornblower.
Now a grim figure appeared climbing the stairs from the basement—Mrs Mason; she had no mobcap on so that her curl papers were all visible.
“You’ll disturb my other gentlemen with all this noise,” she said.
“Mother, they think it’s going to be war,” said Maria.