Bequest

[anteros_lmc]

Title: Bequest
Author: Anteros
Characters: Horatio Hornblower, (Lord Exmouth, Archie Kennedy)
Rating: R
Notes: A response to the Missing Muster Challenge, inspired by the circumstances of Lord Exmouth's death and a very particular bequest.

ETA This story has been beautifully illustrated by the fabulously talented katriona_s here.

Comments

[eglantine_br]

I am home now. More about that soon. I have been waiting all day for this, wanting to read it.

You have a particular talent for showing mingled emotion. The mixture of sorrow, and anger and love comes through here so clearly. It is like sunlight through leaves. Bits of light and shadow. It is very grown up, in a way that my writing struggles to be, I think. I noticed the same thing about the story you wrote that time where Horatio goes out gambling and looses Archie's money, remember?

Poor Fleet. He cannot have had an easy time. I can well imagine Ned and Susan lying awake at night, thinking how to give their kids the best start. It is so hard to watch them struggle.

[anteros_lmc]

So sorry I didn't manage to post this for you earlier in the week. Better late than never hopefully! Glad you're home, hope all went well. Bedtime here now so more later tomorrow. A x

[eglantine_br]

This was worth the wait. I am going to be all over the place tomorrow-- so nice to have it tonight.

[nodbear]

Fleet didn't have an easy time and some of that was his overindulgent father's fault as Ned himself realised belatedly but he was as Anteros rightly says in her authors notes still a popular figure with many of the former young gentlemen of the Indy.

[rosiespark]

I like this very much! And I absolutely love that the muster book entry is the emotional prompt that Horatio needs to finally write the letter - that rings very true indeed.

May I point out a couple of typos? Hornblower could not have known theses things thirty years before. And there's an extra "was" in the last line of the second paragraph of part III.

[anteros_lmc]

Well hello stranger! Lovely to see you round these parts again :) Glad you liked this, muster books are strangely moving documents, they hide a wealth of information about individual lives in their brief lines and columns.

Hornblower could not have known theses things thirty years before
ROFL! Makes him sound like Gollum XD Thanks for spotting, fixed now.

[eglantine_br]

I love that you made Cleveland Christopher. I was so glad to see him.

[anteros_lmc]

Of course he is Christopher. He will always be Christopher from now on. Though I suspect your Christopher will always be a much nicer person than mine!

[nodbear]

hear hear - he is Christopher definitively now !

[nodbear]

Sorry that I am only commenting now - but I have an excuse ( well for the 17th, the 18th I was shamelessly at the theatre with esmerelda_tAt least I had already appreciated it in my privileged pre - posting version

[anteros_lmc]

I was shamelessly at the theatre with esmerelda_t
You and esmerelda_t being shameless at the theatre? Really my dear, you surprise me :P

and shiveringly appropriate that while you were posting this I was discovering the latest and most moving yet letter from Ned in Will K's defence,with its compressed anger and sadness about what injustice there was.
Uncanny to say the least. I did consider editing this at the last moment before I posted it to add a line about "falling into an irregular ship" but I think that is for another time.

Those muster books tell so much to those who are familiar with them - they are a very eloquent testimony to all sorts of human joy and tragedy
Yes, definitely. I really wanted to try and communicate the enormous significance of those simple lines recorded in the muster books.

And picture Susan, listening to Fleet read the letter out loud and trying not to cry
Oh dear, I hadn't thought of the consequence of Horatio's letter... :'(

[esmerelda_t]

This is a beautiful portrait of the older Hornblower and how he's almost folded into himself over the years.

[anteros_lmc]

Thank you, and yes, that's a perfect way to put it, Hornblower does fold in on himself as he ages.