“On Saturday evening I was at the Duke of Queensberry’s (at Richmonds’entend) with a small company, and there were Sir W. Hamilton and Mrs. Hart, who on the 3rd of next month, previous to their departure, is to be madeMadame l’Envoyeé à Naples, the Neapolitan Queen having promised to receive her in that quality.Hereshe cannot be presented, where only such over-virtuous wives as the Duchess of Kingston and Mrs. Hastings, who could go with a husband in each hand, are admitted. I had only heard of her Attitudes, and those, in dumb show, I have not yet seen. Oh, but she sings admirably; has a very fine strong voice; is an excellent buffa and an astonishing tragedian. She sung ‘Nina’ in the highest perfection, and there her attitudes were a whole theatre of grace and various expressions.”
“On Saturday evening I was at the Duke of Queensberry’s (at Richmonds’entend) with a small company, and there were Sir W. Hamilton and Mrs. Hart, who on the 3rd of next month, previous to their departure, is to be madeMadame l’Envoyeé à Naples, the Neapolitan Queen having promised to receive her in that quality.Hereshe cannot be presented, where only such over-virtuous wives as the Duchess of Kingston and Mrs. Hastings, who could go with a husband in each hand, are admitted. I had only heard of her Attitudes, and those, in dumb show, I have not yet seen. Oh, but she sings admirably; has a very fine strong voice; is an excellent buffa and an astonishing tragedian. She sung ‘Nina’ in the highest perfection, and there her attitudes were a whole theatre of grace and various expressions.”
So Mr. Walpole’s world was conquered (with reservations) and she thought it conquered wholly.
They were married at Marylebone church on the 6th September, 1790, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, and the witnesses were my Lord Abercorn, Sir William’s cousin, and Mr. Dutens, and fashion laughed at Sir William as it had never laughed yet. Indeed, it had believed he might escape the adventuress at the last moment—the dotard! And Mr. Walpole wrote again to his Miss Berrys that “Apropos, Sir W. Hamilton has married his Gallery of Statues, and they are set out on their return to Naples.”
And Emma spent that eventful day with her friend and gave him the last sitting of so many; the last forever.
That friendship and Sir William’s true affection stand out as the sole and touching realities of the unreal froth and laughter and slighting jest with Mr. Walpole’s aged cynicism leading the rabble rout. He may have been right in his valuation—he would have declared that after years proved him immaculately so, had he lived to jest when that time came—but his light cruelties hover, a malarial glitter of corruption, above the Lethe where all dead things roll to their doom in the sullen flood; and Romney’s adoration and her husband’s fidelity shine like fixed stars in every memory of her fair face, and will illuminate her with tenderness until her beauty is forgotten.
Her gratitude to her husband! She could never make him amends for his goodness. What did it matter that the cold Queen of England refused to receive her? He had restored her to all a woman could value. She wrote to her faithful Romney:
“I am the happiest woman in the world. Sir William is fonder of me every day, and I hope he will have no corse to repent of his goodness to me. But why do I tell you this? You know me enough. You was the first dear friend I opened my heart to. You ought to know me, for you have seen and discoursed with me in my poorer days. How grateful then do I feel to my dear, dear husband, that as restored peace to my mind, that as given me honours, rank, and what is more, innocence and happiness. Rejoice with me, my dear sir, my friend, my more than father. Believe me, I am still that same Emma you knew me. Tell Hayley I am always reading his ‘Triumphs of Temper,’ it was that that made me Lady H. for God knows I had for five years enough to try my temper and I am afraid if it had not been for the good example Serena taught me, my girdle would have burst, and if it had I had been undone for Sir W. minds more temper than beauty. He therefore wishes Mr. Hayley would come that he might thank him for his sweet-tempered wife. I swear to you I have never once been out of humour since the 6th of last September. God bless you.”
“I am the happiest woman in the world. Sir William is fonder of me every day, and I hope he will have no corse to repent of his goodness to me. But why do I tell you this? You know me enough. You was the first dear friend I opened my heart to. You ought to know me, for you have seen and discoursed with me in my poorer days. How grateful then do I feel to my dear, dear husband, that as restored peace to my mind, that as given me honours, rank, and what is more, innocence and happiness. Rejoice with me, my dear sir, my friend, my more than father. Believe me, I am still that same Emma you knew me. Tell Hayley I am always reading his ‘Triumphs of Temper,’ it was that that made me Lady H. for God knows I had for five years enough to try my temper and I am afraid if it had not been for the good example Serena taught me, my girdle would have burst, and if it had I had been undone for Sir W. minds more temper than beauty. He therefore wishes Mr. Hayley would come that he might thank him for his sweet-tempered wife. I swear to you I have never once been out of humour since the 6th of last September. God bless you.”
Her dear warm heart! He kissed that letter as he laid it aside, and dreamed of a visit to Naples to bask in her sunshine, a dream that melted into nothing.
So they set out to Naples, Ambassador and Ambassadress of England, visiting on the way the sad, foreboding Marie Antoinette of France, and bearing with them in Emma’s bosom her last letter to her sister Marie Caroline of the Two Sicilies. To such honour is the once forlorn Emma come! It would have been much to witness the meeting of those two beautiful creatures, on whom the hand of Destiny was so strangely laid.
And they returned to the Palazzo Sessa. To live happy ever after? At least it began with all due splendour. Marie Caroline redeemed her promise and broke, in Lady Hamilton’s favour, the rule which forbids any sovereign to receive a woman who cannot be presented at her native Court. Not only so—Mrs. Hart was forgotten. That lady had, for social purposes, never existed, and the daughter of the Hapsburgs took the daughter of the blacksmith to her bosom on the footing of closest, most intimate friendship. Her keen eyes were fixed steadily on the storm blackening in France, rolling up the sky and slowly extinguishing the sun. Let who would doubt its coming, she would be prepared. She could not do enough for the representatives of England, and all the world followed her example. Surely the past was buried under the radiant present as the drowned corpses lie beneath the blue Mediterranean, and if a memory, like a white face, ever floated up to the sparkling surface, it was easy for Emma Hamilton to forget it when the next ripple carried it out to sea. All the English ladies, even their young daughters, were at her feet now. Perhaps she did not quite realize that the English in foreign countries live by a different code from the English in England. She was to understand that later.
It was for the first time worth Hamilton’s while to train her in politics, for the quick wit that aided him at every turn could be made useful in his diplomatic work also. It grew more irksome as he grew older, and as France, sinister, menacing as Vesuvius itself, threatened to break forth in ruining flames and lava. Emma could spare him a little here and there on the lighter side, he thought. Certainly she could and did copy and rewrite some of his despatches and was developing into a capable secretary.
It puzzled her, wearied her a little at first, but when she understood that it helped him, that even the Queen’s chance words to her repeated to him (but were they ever chance?) were of interest and value, she caught up that rôle of stateswoman, and played it as she did all the others. After all, an ambassadress should be in the secrets of her trade.Shewould show them that there too she was at home. Not for nothing had Greville written to Sir William in the early days of the plot against her, “Emma’s passion is admiration, and it is capable of aspiring to any line which will be celebrated, and it would be indifferent when on that key whether she was Lucretia or Sappho or Scævola or Regulus, anything grand, whether masculine or feminine she could take up.”
She could, indeed. She would show them now, King, Queen, Hamilton, Greville, the World, that there was nothing beyond her, and the more difficult the better. She would win the Royal admiration, and with it under the Queen’s and Hamilton’s tuition she studied her new rôle—the politics of Europe. There, too, she would be prima donna, and Marie Caroline, used to the choice of instruments, tested this one in little things, and her heart rejoiced within her. For the day of great things was drawing on.
PART III
CHAPTER XVIINELSON1793
Theterror and chaos which dominated the France of the Revolution had at last overflowed her coasts, and the vision of Marie Caroline was realized before the eyes of all the world. Driven by fear and hatred and a nascent sense of power, the young tiger that had tasted blood and mastery was not only standing at bay as formerly, but now making alarming springs on neighbouring territory. Here and there his swift paw struck and left its bleeding scores. What hope was there for Europe but a coalition, not only against the armed forces of France but also against her new and frightful gospel of Death to Despotism, to the Aristocrats, to the Kings? Death also to God—no peace until the last king had been strangled in the bowels of the last priest. One after another, silently, tremblingly, rallying, led by Austria whose royal daughter was in the hands of the murderers, the European nations herded together as frightened cattle herd when the howl of the wolf is heard at midnight.
It is easy now for armchair philosophers to trace the features of liberty behind the mask of the Medusa and to hold to the belief that the root of democracy was watered by the blood that drenched the soil of France—not only royal blood, be it remembered, but the blood of the people also. It was more difficult at the end of the eighteenth century when, to most sober men, France had become a madness drunk with abominations, wild with bloody and sexual license, a shame to look upon, the enemy of God and man.
The Queen of the Two Sicilies certainly made that view her religion and conscience. It was not wonderful. Every fragment of her mother’s, the great Empress Maria Theresa’s, policy, was being trampled to pieces by the French republicans before her eyes. Her doomed sister was in their hands, tortured daily and nightly with every fiendish cruelty the mind of man and woman could conceive—widowed by the guillotine, discrowned, and drawing daily nearer to the same fate. For, as Danton cried in his tremendous image: “The coalized kings threaten us; we hurl at their feet, as gage of battle, the head of a king.”
And the reply of the kings and peoples was to ring the French about with fire as enemies of all the harvest that painful ages have brought to mankind. They had sown the tares, they should reap them. And it may be that the historian of the twentieth century may write that that sowing and reaping are not even yet finished for the world.
And besides all these universal concerns, Marie Caroline, as Queen of the Two Sicilies (for her husband counts for nothing save as the sand in the machinery of her rule), had her own cruel anxieties. She doubted the strength of Austria and the policy of her brother the Emperor, she was aware that her husband’s brother, the miserable King of Spain, was angling for French favour at the instance of a wife who would have sold Spain’s honour in exchange for the crown of the Two Sicilies for her son. She looked out into the world with almost hopeless eyes, and saw but one star of hope—England.
Could England unmoved behold Italy and Sicily in French hands, coldly withdrawing herself from European intrigues and bloodshed? If she could do this, all was over.
England, as usual, hesitated and temporized. The quality of swift decision has never been national, though many a great Englishman has flashed it out in emergency. She acted with a caution so cold that to many English hearts it appeared weakness. Advice was sent from the English Cabinet to the Queen to make peace while yet she could with France—the rising star of war. She could not if she would. Daily the position grew worse as the doctrines of mob-anarchy filtered along the Mediterranean coasts and among their inflammable southern peoples. The inaction of England drove her almost frantic. What! England, Mistress of the seas, Ruler of India, was it possible for her to behold unmoved the Mediterranean become a French lake, and Antichrist enthroned in every European capital but London? And yet it seemed that this very thing might be.
And then the last weight was thrown into the peace scale of English patience and it dropped. Marie Antoinette was guillotined, and even in Marie Caroline’s anguish she realized that her sister had not died in vain. That event touched the conscience of Europe with horror—that and all the cruel circumstances involved. By itself alone it could not have effected it, but as the last snowflake fluttering on the massed snow tilts its equilibrium until it rushes down in roar and ruin, so that horror, perhaps no worse than many precedent, called England to arms. War was declared, and the great arsenal of Toulon seized by the British Admiral Lord Hood. The day that news reached the Queen her wearied eyes flashed dominant once more. “We have them!” she said.
But not yet. There was much, much yet to be done before the guns of Trafalgar should open a conquering road for those of Waterloo, and with the grim dogged patience of her ancestry Marie Caroline settled down to the long struggle. Who could hope that the interests of a little kingdom like the Two Sicilies should loom large in the councils of a power like England? What would the English care if the Bourbon Royalties were driven from Naples? They were but a name to the islanders.
With trembling but resolute care she surveyed her hopes and weapons, Acton was a clear-headed man, but somewhat of a lath painted to look like iron. No one knew that better than the Queen now, whatever had been her opinion at first. Still, though an Irishman, he was strongly pro-British and imbued with the necessary hatred of the French and all their works, Hamilton was old—too much of the dilettante, his interest keener in an unearthed statue, a strayed gem from the Medici collections, than in all the protocols of Europe—clear-headed certainly, life-practised in the tortuous ways of diplomacy; but old; lacking in zest and fire. Yet, considering all this with the frigid judgment of a statesman, Marie Caroline felt his value still. He belonged to one of the ruling families of England, he was connected with the King by ties which had not broken even in the strain of his marriage with Emma, and was universally respected as a man of high character—the English type of the great gentleman, self-possessed and cool in dangerous times. Nor had his marriage injured him except with a few scandalous old women of both sexes. Emma, supported by the Queen, had worn her honours excellently, without either flaunting or shame. Quick as lightning to assimilate even the unspoken hint, and to take colour from the society about her, she filled her post to perfection. The Queen and Hamilton between them modelled and drilled her into the Ambassadress and by 1793 the work was finished. The born great lady, cold and dignified, could never have suited the Neapolitans from the Queen downward so well as this warm-hearted, kindly, eager, beautiful creature who yet could dazzle the world with her graces and again chill it, if necessary, with the “Majesty and Juno air,” of which she had written to Greville years before. And in this emergency it was to Emma the Queen’s mind chiefly turned.
To Emma! Amazing stroke of fate! Emma herself might have hesitated to believe it possible in spite of all her self-confidence, if it had not come so gradually.
First, the Queen’s exceeding graciousness, the private receptions, the long intimate talks ranging from embroidery silks to English manners and customs, to the talk of the Lazzaroni—that curious population peculiar to Naples—basking about the piers in sunshine. Then the open favour—the Royal horses at Emma’s disposal, the Royal grooms to attend her when her Excellency the Ambassadress rode abroad; not now madcap and gay as on the Sussex Downs, but sedately as becomes a great lady. A very great lady, worthy to be courted by the others of the kind who frequented Naples.
“Emma,” wrote Hamilton to Greville, “has had a difficult part to act, and has succeeded wonderfully, having gained by having no pretensions, the thorough approbation of all the English ladies. She goes on improving daily. She is really an extraordinary being.”
Did not the quick Queen know that even better than Hamilton? She had seen it years before. Very gradually, and without any very clear understanding on her part, Emma was pushed into the centre of an English party at the Court of Naples. What more natural and proper in her position? And so where neither the Queen nor her influence could appear, Emma could, and openly.
It became Marie Caroline’s amiable custom to send little messages to the English Ambassador through his charming wife, whom she saw almost daily. Acton, too, was often of the party, and the Queen and he would discuss political matters before Emma; matters in which her interest soon awakened and which she could discuss intelligently. She had always responded to education from the Greville days onward, and the Queen and Acton were educating her carefully now for a rôle she little suspected. It amused and pleased Hamilton, who did his share of the work at home.
But it was not her advice they wanted at first. It was the co-operation of an unsuspected intermediary, ardent, devoted, full of boundless energy. And they secured it. Tact also. There, too, the Queen could trust her Emma. See how she writes to the friendly Greville, who is rigidly all that is courteous and kind to his uncle’s childless wife:
“I have no pretensions nor do I abuse Her Majesty’s goodness, as she observed at Court at Naples (when) we had a drawing-room in honner of the Empress having brought a son. I had been with the Queen the night before alone,en famille, laughing, singing, etc., etc., but at the drawing-room I kept my distance and payd the Queen as much respect as tho’ I had never seen her before, which pleased her very much. She showed me great distinction that night and told me several times how much she admired my good conduct. You may imagine how happy my dear, dear Sir William is. We live more like lovers than husband and wife, as husbands and wives go nowadays. Lord deliver me! and the English are as bad as the Italians some few excepted.”
“I have no pretensions nor do I abuse Her Majesty’s goodness, as she observed at Court at Naples (when) we had a drawing-room in honner of the Empress having brought a son. I had been with the Queen the night before alone,en famille, laughing, singing, etc., etc., but at the drawing-room I kept my distance and payd the Queen as much respect as tho’ I had never seen her before, which pleased her very much. She showed me great distinction that night and told me several times how much she admired my good conduct. You may imagine how happy my dear, dear Sir William is. We live more like lovers than husband and wife, as husbands and wives go nowadays. Lord deliver me! and the English are as bad as the Italians some few excepted.”
Greville smiled his little bitter smile which aged more quickly than he did, as he read Emma’s moralities. Women! He wondered whether a sense of humour would save Emma from her absurdities. And to him!—to him, of all men! But like many beauties she never had a sense of humour, scarcely even of fun. She had many other gifts, however, and used them.
Certainly Sir William was satisfied, and with reason. It was Emma now for the exact degree of attention to be shown to a Princess travellingincognita, the exact degree of discouragement to ladies whose rank was impeccable but reputations a little too damaged even for Neapolitan easiness. Emma withdraws herself with dignity from revels which are over-rompish for her newly-refined taste, and Sir William applauds.
“Let them all roll on the carpet—provided you are not of the party. My trust is in you,” he writes.
And safely. Emma, the Ambassadress, is more inclined to magnify her office than to roll on the carpet with it. Great ladies, the truly great, do not commit suchfaux pas. She mused often over the unspoken lessons in demeanour of the sweet Gunning Duchess, now gone to rejoin her lost and lovely sister. Emma had studied that soft dignity to some purpose, and if the original Eve broke forth sometimes primitive and unashamed, who can blame her?
She sat one day in her room of the mirrors dressed in her white morning negligée and looked out upon the blue bay, with many thoughts of public anxiety. It was dawn, and a golden calm subdued the water into a peace so exquisite that it quieted her into a serene delight. They were to spend the day alone, and she was glad; a little tired of unceasing anxiety and the long uneasy talks with the Queen and Acton. The air was full of trouble; she hankered sometimes for the good old days when all was gaiety and gladness by the blue sea that has seen so many revellers come and flit away into the darkness for ever. And as she leaned and watched in pleasant idleness, a ship hove in sight, far-off but drawing in slowly and steadily with white sails set to catch every drift of the faint morning breeze—a great ship with yawning ports along her chequered sides, with the English ensign flying; English, therefore, and certainly a news-bearer.
She started up and caught at Sir William’s glass, steadying it against a flower-stand and kneeling while she looked. Yes—English.
Good God! Sir William must know.
He was not in his room and she sent Teresa flying all over the house to search for him. No—His Excellency was out. He had dressed and gone hastily down to the water’s edge. Then he knew—he had known before she did. She knelt down and resumed her glass. Presently, their own boat pulling off from the pier. That would be Sir William in the stern and one of the secretaries. Which, she could not be sure. Now they were nearing the big ship as she turned, rounded broadside on to the windows, and Emma, through the slid-back panes, could hear the great rattle when the mighty anchor loosed from the catheads sent blue water flying as it sought its home below. And then the thunder of the Royal salute to the flag of the Two Sicilies flying on Uovo and Nuovo. Twenty-one guns. She put her hands to her ears, laughing for pride and pleasure as the roar of the Lion sent the wild echoes flying. These Neapolitans—they should see the might of her own people at last; the floating battlements which alone stood between them and the French devils. She clapped her hands when gun after gun thundered along the Bay, and Uovo and Nuovo responded with feebler, crackling honours.
What! The Royal Barge putting out to the ship, and at this early hour! And that was the King in the stern if ever she saw him. Then that was Marie Caroline’s doing; a special honour to the ship representing the friend of the Two Sicilies. She saw her husband’s boat draw back politely, and the Royal barge gained the rope ladder first with Sir William’s hovering attendant, and the boatswain’s shrill pipe cut the morning air, and the officers gathered at the gangway, and she could see the King laboriously ascending the rope ladder, Sir William following, and a bright bugle call was heard, and then, for watchers ashore, the scene was closing unless one cared to watch the boats making off hot-foot from the shore with cargoes of fruit and vegetables very acceptable to men so long afloat as the bluejackets of the English Fleet.
Emma did not. With Teresa she made such a careful toilette as a beautiful young woman of twenty-seven would naturally achieve with hospitalities of importance to come. The Captain and all the officers on leave would be entertained at the Embassy. Indeed, the Queen might send for her any moment to discuss the news, whatever it might be. Word had already reached the Embassy that the ship was theAgamemnon—detached from the English fleet blockading Toulon. Good God! What was the news? But no one was sure, though wild rumours were flying about and nearly all the population on the quays. She lived at the window that morning, and watched the Royal barge return with all the honours, and received a messenger who came from Sir William with news that preparation must be made for the guests she expected. She was half frantic with suspense.
An hour went by. Evidently long private discussions between the Ambassador and the Captain. Good Heavens! Why couldn’t they talk as well ashore? And then again the boatswain’s piercing call, and the Embassy boat at the ladder, and Sir William clambering down slowly hand under hand, and a slight man in uniform taking the descent as to the manner born. She had heard, but could not for the life of her remember, who commanded theAgamemnon.
She hurried into the great reception room where the morning sun was darting bright rays through the jalousies, and lighting up the low broad settees, the polished tables with Sir William’s articles ofvirtudisplayed upon them, the glassed cabinets where yet more precious treasures lurked, and the huge pottery bowls full of the glorious flowers which poured into the house summer and winter alike. A gracious setting for any woman.
Steps. Voices—Sir William’s a little excited; she knew that note! A strange voice answering. A group of uniformed men at the door, the Ambassador leading and waving the Captain to precede him.
“Emma, my love. Captain Horatio Nelson of theAgamemnon. Lady Hamilton, sir. He brings the news that Toulon is in our hands.”
She had started to her feet to curtsey ceremoniously, when the last words caught her ear, and then, radiant, rejoicing, the Ambassadress caught his hand in both her own.
“Toulon ours? Oh, sir, you are God’s messenger as well as our King’s. Thank God. Thank God.”
CHAPTER XVIIITHE NEAPOLITAN COURT
Captain Horatio Nelsonwas at this time thirty-four years old, and far from despicable in person. He was slender almost to a fault and so small-boned that most observers classed him as a little man, which was far from true, since he touched middle height, and bore himself well and serenely except when suddenly agitated; and then his nervous temperament sparkled in his eyes and twitched his mobile lips. His brows were arched and gave a clear lift to the penetrating eye beneath; his forehead lofty and commanding. Yet it is possible these characteristics might be read into the face by later knowledge rather than by present observation, and to Emma, not so quick to read character as to feel and humour it insensibly, he appeared at first sight an ordinary sea captain in the ordinary plain uniform (devoid even of epaulettes) of the time. His consequence lay in the news he brought, and his interest to her personally in the fact that he had a petition from his Admiral, my Lord Hood, to be preferred at the Neapolitan Court, which she might raise her own consequence by aiding.
When they were alone, Sir William gave her the necessary outlines.
“I am impressed with the air of this young man, my love. He met the King with the utmost composure and appeared so full of business as to have room for nothing else. Important business indeed. Toulon is in our hands, but troops, troops are of all things needful and Lord Hood has sent theAgamemnonto beg for them. I know what the Queen’s mind will be, but the King’s jaw dropped. He is willing enough to take his subsidy from England, but not to spend a penny of it but on his own fancies. Work for my Emma!”
She opened the subject again with Nelson, whom she found in the reception room, turning over the ornaments on the tables with fingers curiously delicate for a man and of his profession. He had a tall, good-looking boy in attendance in midshipman’s uniform, dirk and all complete, whom he presented as his stepson Josiah Nisbet, and to whom Lady Hamilton overflowed with cordiality. Boys were her delight, she protested. No, of course he should not live aboard. The poor little fellow (who blushed to be so named) must need a change after that cruel cruising for weeks and months! Sir William’s Italian secretary should take him to see the sights, and she would talk with Captain Nelson.
Nisbet despatched, there was much to tell and hear. The long and weary blockade of Toulon.
“We got honour and salt beef, madam, not much else!” says he, leaning back on the fine silk of the settee as if a little wearied. “My good fellows have not had a morsel of fresh meat or vegetables for nineteen weeks and though I did my best to keep them amused and distracted, Your Ladyship will judge there was much sickness aboard. I have been luckier than some captains, but—”
“Hold! Not a word more.”
Up goes a fair commanding hand, loaded with sparkling rings, and the other touches the silver bell at her elbow. The lacquey outside comes hurrying at the quick tinkle.
“Tell Ferrari to have six boatloads of fruit and vegetables sent off to theAgamemnonin my name. The best in the market. And let it be donenow.”
“Indeed, madam, words fail me to express my sense of your consideration!” the young Captain cries with warmth. “Your Ladyship shows a sensibility I can never forget. The world that hankers for victories ignores the poor fellows that win it for them. I thank you in their name. That fruit will be the sweeter to them coming from our Ambassadress.”
Indeed, it won his heart, which was at that time centred in his men. Never a commander more zealous for their good with all in his power. She touched the right string there.
“Indeed, sir, you have but to speak and have in Naples,” says she earnestly. “If you could but guess the terror and agony of the Queen’s mind with her sister in the hands of those French monsters, and Jacobinism rolling like the lava from Vesuvius ever nearer and nearer, you would comprehend your consequence here. Her only hope is England.”
“You don’t mention the King, madam?” says Nelson in some surprise.
“I don’t mention him because he has not even the merit of being neutral to his wise Queen’s English policy, but is forever angling after his brother on the throne of Spain, who is in the pay of the French Jacobins, so sure as I sit here.”
“Then, Your Ladyship, was I amiss in mentioning first to the King my Admiral’s need of troops? Good God, how is a plain sailor-man to see his way through such a maze! Surely the Ambassador would have checked me if I mistook.”
“No, sir. It is true it would be well if the King could be dropped out of any negotiations, but being King ’tis not possible. I shall see Her Majesty this afternoon after the King and she have received you, and will lay before her any private particulars you may have reserved for Sir William. He will give you my character for good sense and secrecy. Confer with him and let me know the result. And leaving you to this I will put on my hat and take your little Nisbet for a drive along the sea-road from Naples to Posilippo. I see him in the loggia. You can rely on my taking care of him.”
Captain Nelson sat alone in the cool and beautiful room considering the events of the morning with that swift mind of his, and of these his beautiful hostess came last in interest. Could he have made a mistake in opening the Admiral’s request for troops to the King? That was a vital matter for the Fleet and, not only that, but would affect his own professional reputation according to success or failure. But then, if so, Sir William should have given him a check somehow. He rose and took a turn about the room, considering, and touched the bell and with what many young captains would have considered consummate impudence requested he might have the honour of a few words with His Excellency before starting for the Royal audience. “Certainly,” was the answer, “if Captain Nelson would kindly follow the messenger.”
He rose at once, seeing Lady Hamilton through one of the windows, standing with Nisbet in the loggia. Her hand was on his shoulder, near as high as her own, and she was pointing to the sea, her face in the shadow of a great straw hat. He lingered an imperceptible moment, for the attitude, her womanly figure in its flowing white, and the sweet laughing face brought his home so tenderly and touchingly before him after the weary storm-tossed months before Toulon, the solitary years at sea, that his throat constricted and in his quick emotional way a moisture clouded his eyes. He saw his wife, his Fanny, fluttering her handkerchief as he drove off to join his ship at Portsmouth, his old father standing at her shoulder. For a moment, this stranger woman was Home to him, after all the sea loneliness.
What had he heard of her? He tried to remember, as he followed to Sir William’s study. Of course the Fleet gossiped on all the Mediterranean doings when the captains assembled at one another’s or the Admiral’s table for business as much as for pleasure. He remembered Lord Hood’s speaking of Sir William Hamilton.
“A gentleman, if ever there was one, grandson of the Duke of Hamilton, but should be attending to the Jacobins in Naples sooner than collecting old vases. A hobby well enough for a man in Pall Mall, but, by the Lord, sir, Naples is a perfect hotbed of vice; the very soil for the seeds of Jacobinism to fester in! The King of the Two Sicilies will be a broken reed to lean on when we come to close grips with the Mounseers.”
And then one of the captains, laughing, “A man of taste other ways than in vases, my Lord. He married his mistress, the famous Mrs. Hart. They say he fell in love with her because there wasn’t one of his ancient statues she could not represent with a white cloth about her.”
And another: “I saw her in London, my Lord, at the opera when we were refitting at Portsmouth. A wonder—a regular blue-eyed English beauty. For my part, I can’t blame His Excellency. ’Tis the only way to secure a mistress’s fidelity.”
And Lord Hood with his long, lean face, summing up: “Why, sir, ’tis the worst of all ways for a man for it gives a bad woman security to befool him. And I would have you all to warn your officers if duty should call them to Naples that it has the name of being a sink of iniquity—every woman a wanton” (but His Lordship used a Biblical term) “and every man a fiddler or a fool, and act accordingly in the giving of leave in the ward-room and gun-room. All the same, be she what she will, Lady Hamilton is Ambassadress and said to be as thick as thieves with the Queen of Naples—a bird of the same feather if all tales be true. And now, gentlemen, to business!”
And then the thing passed from his mind like breath from a looking glass. He had no reason to expect a visit to Naples for himself. But, with the surrender of Toulon, it came, for theAgamemnonwas a fast sailer and speed the essential. No thought of the story revived in him, thronged with great events and anxieties, until that moment.
Sir William was sitting at his bureau with a list before him which looked much more like a catalogue ofobjets d’artthan a summary of the Neapolitan forces—but let that pass. Captain Nelson knew quite as little of the former as Sir William of the latter, and might be mistaken. He was as formal as his youth and subordination demanded.
“Your Excellency, I have made bold to ask a private word, for I understand we go to the Palace shortly.”
“Certainly, sir. I was about to send for you. Her Excellency came in a moment since to say she had warned you that all real business is transacted with the Queen. I would have given you that hint this morning but ’twas impossible.”
“I thank Your Excellency. But surely there could be no movement of troops without His Majesty’s sanction?”
“Naturally, sir, but you shall understand in strict privacy that His Majesty is much under the influence of his brother, the King of Spain, who is in league with the French Jacobins. Consequently all news is obliged to go first, as it were, to the Queen and General Acton (a right-hand man of ours) who then do what they can with His Majesty.”
Captain Nelson considered a swift instant. Thought might be seen quivering over his plain nervous face and in his keen eyes, so much were the inward and outward man at one. He was got into the land of intrigue, for certain, and what was a sailor-man to do with it? No laying his ship broadside on to the King, and seeing his flag come slowly down the mast in answer to the guns. No cutlass out and boarding with women and their petty intrigues and tempers and secrets. Better be plain with the Ambassador at the start. He misliked his job.
“Your Excellency, I am no diplomatist, but a sailor. My errand is to get the troops for my Admiral, else the last state of Toulon will be the worst. What then is my shortest road to this end?”
Sir William took a pinch of snuff and surveyed the eager war-worn young man with good-humour.
“Sir, your shortest way is the Queen, and your shortest road to her through my Lady Hamilton.”
“I guessed as much from Her Excellency’s condescension but—”
“There is really no ‘but,’ Captain Nelson. I might have said it is theonlyway. The Queen herself will be anxious, even jealous, about despatching troops in the present state of Sicily. My Lady Hamilton, however, has unbounded influence with her and deserves it.”
“Does Your Excellency convey that I am to discuss the matter with Her Ladyship?”
Captain Nelson looked grave, disturbed. For such counsels of war the Fleet was no training.
Sir William saw the look and smiled in his easy heart-hiding way.
“My dear sir, in diplomacy we fire no broadsides, we utter no defiances. We glide, insinuate, compliment, and thwart—all with delicacy. And you will thus find the ladies invaluable in my profession. Her Excellency, though I say it of my wife, has the brain and energy of a man; coupled with the finesse and patience of a woman. You and I will now go and pay our formal visit at the Palace. If you follow my advice you will confine yourself to presenting the Admiral’s letter with compliments alike to King and Queen—more especially the former. At two o’clock Her Ladyship will meet you with me, and if you will then be plain with us as to the situation of the Fleet, I will engage for it that she shall see the Queen. The matter of the transport of the troops you will arrange later with General Acton.”
To say that Captain Nelson was astonished is to say little. Yet what to do but submit to the man on the spot—the British Ambassador? He bowed and signified obedience and the two set off, properly attended, amid the cheers of the crowding populace, for the news of Toulon had fled through the city, and rainbows of bunting were a-flutter from every stick and height.
TheAgamemnonlay ringed about by the bringers of Her Excellency’s bounty. He mentioned this with gratitude to Sir William.
“She has a passion for the glory of England, and therefore for the Fleet that is its instrument,” says the Ambassador, “and an excellent heart behind it. I have seen her so worked up in these French horrors, and our action against them, that ’tis not too much to say I believe she would sell the gown off her back to provide for the meanest Jack ashore if he came to her.”
It sank in, but on the whole Captain Nelson was occupied with his presentations to Royalty of the foreign order, and how best to carry himself in honour of the Flag. True he had a Royal friend of his own, His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, but he was a sailor like himself, a rough and tough take-it-or-leave-it Jack afloat—by no means a guide to Queens and their fripperies.
Yet she was not affrighting after all. The presentation to the pantaloon King was brief. He shook the Captain by the hand, introduced him himself to Acton, and commended the Toulon work and the speed of theAgamemnonfor the benefit of the quick-eyed Neapolitan grandees who stood about him. They affected Captain Nelson unpleasantly—grimacing, gesticulating foreigners. Was this the stuff the Admiral counted on for Toulon? Give him a thousand bull-headed big-lunged Norfolk men for choice to take his chance with, sooner than a million like these monkeys. And then the King himself conducted him to the Queen, with her ladies in waiting.
Here, too, he was unfavourably impressed. Handsome, no doubt, but lined, haggard, with too-bright eyes, worn to fiddle-strings with her political and private anxieties. He noted the fine diamonds about her throat and swinging beside her sallow cheeks—that brooch would buy half Norfolk. He must tell his Fanny these fine doings; she would like to hear. But her grimace was surface, he believed—what was in her shifty foreign heart?
The Austrian Hen, as her husband politely called her behind her elegant back, was formally gracious, no more. It was unfortunate that she could not express herself in English, and to use French, the language of the Ghouls, was impossible in present circumstances, not to mention that Captain Nelson’s French was the last of his achievements. Therefore Sir William interpreted in mellifluous Italian.
“I congratulate our noble ally His Majesty the King of England and our fortunate selves on this great and auspicious victory!” said the Queen. “It may be hoped it will be a mortal blow to these scourges of humanity. And the King through me begs Captain Nelson to understand that no mark of gratitude will be lacking to him and to his gallant officers and men. A gala performance at San Carlo has to-day been ordered in their honour and a banquet will be given to-night by the King and myself to the distinguished Captain and officers—” and so forth—Nelson bowing and bowing, and listening with all his ignorant ears to catch the wordtroops. When would the flummery stop and these people get to business?
She presented him with a snuff-box, a pretty sparkler enough, her own flattered face set in small brilliants; and so they got out into the cheering streets again.
“And now for food and Her Ladyship!” says the Ambassador.
All his life long, Nelson was to remember that charming meal in the large cool room with the assiduous lacqueys, and the splendours, for so they seemed to his simple taste, of silver and glass and delicious foods most delicately served; for Sir William, like Greville and all his clan, would have things handsome about him, and Emma was something of a Sybarite. Almost it seemed a dream and that he must awake to the tumbling of billows outside, the grey leagues of sea, and the swaying tables galleried to catch the sliding china. It was a family party, himself and Nisbet the only guests, and Nisbet sat beside the lovely lady in white and looked up to her in a kind of cubbish awe, for already Nelson had had reason to note that Josiah lacked manners. Beautiful indeed, he thought, but even less so in features, could that be possible, than in expression. Life, eagerness, quick-thoughted graciousness, all sparkled in her face and winged every swift gesture. Nothing could be done by halves. She heaped Nisbet’s plate withdolci—“Boys worth their weight in mud like a good tuck-in with sweets!” says she, laughing kindly. “Don’t I love them myself too?”
And then Josiah must needs have two plates of fruit overflowed with cream by the same fair hand, and two glasses of Sir William’s champagne, and then another, till his very eyes bulged and Nelson put out a restraining hand. It was the same with himself. All her best she gave and only grieved it was not more. Never so cordial a welcome! It was like a cheering Christmas fire, spreading its warmth and gladding flame through the great Norfolk manor-houses at home. It dimmed the languid Neapolitan sunshine.
But all this despatched, and the three of them closeted in Sir William’s study, what a different woman she became! Indeed, she bewildered him with the changeableness of her. It was a grave earnest face beside Sir William’s, he himself facing the pair.
Sir William briefly recounted the events of the morning and invited her opinion of the Queen’s action.
“You, my love, know her as none else.”
Indeed, Nelson thought it the strangest council at which he had ever assisted—a tale for the Admiral when he got back.
“Why, she will fear the troops going, no doubt of that. She is one that likes to hold the power in her own hand; and the King will of course be averse, because he has a notion, which God knows he has no brains to carry out, to assist the Spanish interest some day with them. He would be well with England and with France too and balance betwixt them like a merry-andrew. The Queen must be convinced and then ’tis done. Will Captain Nelson allow us to see his private instructions from the Admiral?”
Thus this astonishing young woman. It all but petrified him. He hesitated coldly.
“Madam, I can mean no discourtesy, but they are for the eye of theAmbassador.”
“And the Ambassador,” replies Sir William gravely, “can do nothing with the Queen but through the Ambassadress. You must find Her Ladyship in arguments, Captain Nelson, though she has plenty of her own.”
He obeyed on Sir William’s assurance and the bright quick eye of the lady. She appeared to master all he said with precision, wasted not a moment, rehearsed his points, and rising, looked at the watch at her girdle and prepared to depart for her fixed audience with the Queen.
“It takes the form of a friendly visit with talk and refreshments,” says she, “but I shall bring back news for all that. Will you not take Captain Nelson for a drive, Sir William? The more the people see and applaud him the better for our ends.”
She left the room, with his astonished eyes following her.
“Her Ladyship is the key of the situation in Naples,” says Sir William easily. “Shall we drive?”
They found her waiting in the reception room when they returned, entertaining a party of the Agamemnons with the most delicious singing, not a care on her bright brow as she warbled. She enticed the first lieutenant into attempting a duo with her, and the astonished Nelson, who had never heard his voice uplifted but in an order or to outshout the storm, discovered that he possessed a tenor of excellence in his third in command. Lord, how she drew them out! The young men were standing about her, talking, laughing, telling Her Ladyship confidentially of adventures Nelson had never heard of though he kept his subordinates at no awful distance and believed he knew their hearts.
“And since I am certain you are all in rags after this long cruising, for what are men’s fingers!” says she with a fine scorn, “I insist that all you gentlemen send your wardrobes ashore and I and my women will send you back refitted—is not that the sea word?—to the Admiral. We won’t beat the French with a ragged regiment, so we won’t!”
They thanked her cordially—who could refuse such a warm heart? She constituted herself their she-admiral and commanded that the little sick midshipman Bowen should be sent ashore for her own and her mother’s nursing—for good Mrs. Cadogan was enthroned on a settee in purple and fine linen, listening to the Ambassadress’s sallies. And then, when she had them all laughing and talking, she glided up against Captain Nelson with lowered secret eyes.
“ ’Tis all right about the troops. The thing is done. Acton will call to-night on the King’s behalf and offer you six thousand. And now, dismiss care, and hail pleasure and a much needed rest!”
Sir William told him later that she had conquered the Queen completely, had had Acton in, and between them the three concerted the measures and convinced the King he dare no more offend Great Britain than spit in the face of the Pope.
“A wonderful woman!” said Nelson, musing.
And Sir William: “You say very right, sir.”
But her wonders grew on him during that week of sore-needed rest. The beauty of her, the kindness, the flaming womanly one-sided, one-ideal patriotism that could see never a share of so much as grey in a foe’s midnight blackness. He had thought himself keen against the French, but—Lord save us!—my lady was burning ahead while he laboured after. So he thought, but the truth was he kindled her as much as she him. Sir William was old and cool-blooded. He had seen these national feuds come and go and knew a people might be your deadly enemy to-day, and the sword in your hand to-morrow. Not so, these two. It was God’s cause as well as man’s they plotted and worked in, and black was black and white was white and a Frenchman the devil, and an Englishman, especially a sailor, St. Michael and St. George sent for his ruin. They talked the night out and the day in on this, and the Agamemnons hailed her as the Patroness of the Navy—a name she was to earn more greatly in days to come.
Furthermore, he had Romney’s taste for her sweetness. She would talk with lowered voice of his old father, and the wife who must suffer such agonies and he at sea in storms of shot and shell. He caught himself describing his Fanny; her quiet grace—“Not beautiful like you, your Ladyship, but restful to a tossed-about sailor, like the twilight settling down over the Norfolk Broads. I could wish you knew her—a good woman.”
How could he know that Emma’s gentle acquiescent sigh was modelled on her dear dead Duchess—studied from the life of her gracious sympathy? For him it was all nature. Indeed it was—at the moment.
And so the week went by in triumph almost as wearying as toils, but for the quiet hour he got with her now and again and those twilight talks. She warmed Sir William into cordiality also. He knew well enough what the Fleet must mean to the world now and onward, and liked this worn young sailor with his lined face and sensitive mouth. And so the troops were embarked and the last day came, and my lady had played her part gallantly.
It was the 24th September, and in the cloudless heat theAgamemnonhad sloped awnings for a gala of her own to return the plenteous royal hospitalities. She lay swinging at her anchor, formidable but good-humoured, a drowsy giant rocking on blue waters of peace. All the gay folk were bidden for luncheon aboard and the lovely Ambassadress would do the honours of His Britannic Majesty’s ship. The flags were flying in rainbow strings, the guns dispossessed—security and gaiety fluttered in the light voices from the ports, and all were waiting the royalties, Emma beside the Captain.
Good God! Word from the Prime Minister! For Nelson! What, what had happened! The crowding, the silence to hear, and the boatswain just piping the King up the side!
A French man of war with three attendant vessels off Sardinia.Agamemnonto give chase!
Away with the guests, the awnings, the King, the Ambassador, the frippery!
The giant is awake—awake in earnest. The pipe whistled another tune indeed.
Like frightened birds the guests dispersed, boats crowding about to receive their huddling fineries. Down with the awnings—away with every sign of peace. It is war.
The Captain is at his post, but steps aside for one word with the departing Ambassador and his lady.
“A thousand, thousand thanks, my dear friends. What words have I for so much goodness? None, none! But I will return some day with trophies that pay you in the only way to stir your patriotic hearts. Good-bye, your dear Ladyship, you have bound me to the service of your Queen. You have served our country indeed and the Admiral shall know to whom he owes it.”
Hands are wrung. She looks in his face with her own peculiar glow.
“I would give this hand to be sailing with you if but as a powder-monkey, to fight these devils! I envy you—I envy you, Captain!”
The white teeth grit on the words. She means them. What a woman! he thinks, with a last wave of his hand as he sees her kiss young Nisbet and promise to write of him to his mother. Yes, her kindly heart forgets nothing—nothing!
But good-bye to the image of her, he has other thoughts and cares. The great anchor is hauled up from depths where the Roman galleys have anchored, the Greek triremes. Slowly it comes to the catheads, dripping its diamonds. Slowly the sails fill to a soft breeze—would to God it were a gale!—and theAgamemnon, awake and wary, glides along the bay, saluting the royalty of the Two Sicilies with the finality of her sea courtesies as she goes and sinks at last, a sea-wraith faint and far into the distance.
Emma goes back to the room of the mirrors, almost collapsed with evaporated excitement. She has strung herself high these days and pays for it now in a kind of nervous exhaustion.
But she and the Queen agree that Captain Nelson is a fit representative of England’s sea honour. They hope if need be that he may be the messenger again, Sir William nodding assent, as he goes quietly back to his vases.
And Nelson writes to his calm sweet wife in the Norfolk parsonage that in her is all his joy, none separated from her. And she, his other self, must hear of the Neapolitan glories. And the astonishing ambassadress is not forgotten.
“Lady Hamilton has been wonderfully good and kind to Josiah. She is a young woman of amiable manners and who does honour to the station to which she is raised.”
He paused as he wrote it, reflecting how little that cool sentence conveyed all the emotions through which she had drawn him. But what matter? They might never meet again.
A true courageous Englishwoman. That was his last thought. But Fanny represented better the passive sweetness of ideal wifehood.
The ship ploughed through moonlit seas, with a faint star or two over sleeping Naples.