My Lady's feasting on the little fish, which had almost rivalled the
Prince Caracciolo's miraculous draught, did not seem to interfere with
her appetite at the State dinner, or perhaps I should say supper,
which took place at the Queen's Palace in Naples as soon as the guests
could conveniently reassemble after repairing the ravages of so hot
and wet a day. She ate with her accustomed heartiness, as I was in a
position to see, for she had me to sit next to her. Will was there
officially as the Admiral's interpreter--an office which later was
more often filled by My Lady herself, during the Admiral's long spell
ashore in the Two Sicilies. She had said to Her Majesty, in her
good-natured way, "Let Tubby and Josiah come; they can't babble away
any secrets, for they will not understand one word we say." She had
quite forgiven Josiah for his brutal and at that time undeserved
assault on her friendship with his step-father, and he was her devoted
slave again: indeed, there was nothing small about My Lady,--even her
vanity was too great to charge with pettiness. I may say here that
Josiah was mighty careful that night; and I do think it was from fear
of forgetting himself again, although such a very young officer was
not likely to exceed before the company in which he found himself. For
Her Majesty had invited all the captains that could be spared both
for the expedition to Pompeji and for the banquet; and all around us,
mingled with the beauties and most trusted nobles of the Neapolitan
Court were such men as Troubridge and Alexander Ball, the pick of
Nelson's captains, men whom any other Power would have been glad to
welcome as commanders-in-chief at that moment--such was their martial
fame for the handling of their ships, and stomach for fighting.
I don't know which was the finer sight, the scene in the ante-room
under the huge rock-crystal chandeliers with their hundreds of wax
tapers, or the scene at the crescent-shaped dining-table groaning
beneath its rich services of the precious metals, fashioned by such
gold-and-silversmiths as the Florentine, Cellini. In the former, the
modest but self-reliant carriage of the men, who had made all Europe
ring with the fame of their deeds, contrasted finely with the noble
figures and carriage of the young Italian beauties with whom Her
Majesty loved to surround herself--women who held themselves as
upright as though they had borne on their heads the Greek
water-pitchers of antique mould which their peasant women carry to the
wells. They had, too, the strength and health on which the daughters
of our country squires pride themselves, and, yet, more grace than
ever we saw in the great French ladies when Will and I were with the
Allies at the occupation of Paris fifteen years or more later, gone
there to see the great sight, like so many of the gentry round Dover.
And just as for carriage there are no women to be matched with these
Southern Italians, so in many cases it was with their skins, which
were exquisitely velvety and clear, and showed the rich crimson of
their blood through the transparent brown. I noted, and I think Will
noted particularly, the difference between Donna Rusidda and them; for
her skin, while just as transparent and beautiful in texture, was more
of an olive hue, and showed the blood but rarely and at moments of
great agitation--though her cheeks then, to use the words of the old
song, were "as ruddy as a peach" for all their brownness. But I
thought, and I could swear that Will thought, that this very
circumstance conferred upon her visage a kind of distinction.
Most of the ladies could by now speak a little, a very little
English--a gift of tongues which was not shared by many of the
officers, much as they had served in Italian waters. However, between
them they could make words enough to serve while they were assembling
for the banquet, and each keeping an eye on the door by which Her
Majesty was to enter.
At the dinner the grace of the women was not shown to the full, nor
were the attitudes of the officers so characteristic; but to make up
for this came the rolls of hearty laughter. For the Queen on these
occasions by no means maintained a royal reserve, for all the
haughtiness in her nature. Maria Carolina loved fine men, and loved
above all things to see them _themselves_, and I judge that she was
not averse _to seeing them themselves_ for the further reason that it
enabled her to gauge their value as instruments.
Those who had known him long, like Captain Troubridge, could not help
noting, even now, the change that was coming over the Admiral.
Formerly he was extremely reserved when dining in the presence of
ladies, saying but little and drinking no wine until the King's health
should be proposed, and always drinking such healths in bumpers. Now
he took a little wine during dinner, not wishing, I think, to appear
peculiar; and talked very much to My Lady, although he was sitting
between her and the Queen. It was, as I have writ, My Lady's whim that
I should sit upon her other hand that night, and so I had good
opportunity for observing. Will sat on the other side of Captain
Troubridge to interpret between him and Her Majesty, while My Lady
interpreted for the Admiral. She spoke Italian, and also the
Neapolitan dialect, like English; though she could not write her
native tongue better than a clever child.
Having so often heard the tradition of his taciturnity at the table, I
own I was most astonished at his flow of table talk; for, though he
paid My Lady compliments not a few, they were no more than any other
officer in his fleet would have paid--certainly no more than such men
as Captain Troubridge and Captain Hallowell, who had not his flow of
other conversation.
That the Admiral could express himself well, any one who has read his
letters published from time to time could not fail to see. He was no
maker of epigrams, but he said things so briefly, and so to the point,
that one could remember them like epigrams; and, for a seaman, he had
a remarkably well-stored mind. A full knowledge of history he
considered essential to every commander who would understand his
business; and I think that during those years on shore before the
battle of St. Vincent, when he was living a sort of farmer's life in
his father's parsonage, he must have had the run of a fairly-stocked
library and mastered its contents, as it was his wont to master
anything he put his mind to. He was likely talking his best, for was
he not next to one of the world's most famous beauties in the first
days of the friendship to which she had shown herself so well
disposed? What I overheard of their conversation I cannot, as one of
the Admiral's officers, bring myself to write; not that there was
anything that I should blush to repeat on paper, but indeed I could
rather write down a man's coarseness than his tenderness, for his
tenderness is sacred to the person to whom it is addressed, and his
coarseness is mere anathema. But I think I may say something of their
appearance, which any one at the table, and servants, could see as
well as I. The Admiral had on his battle look. As is well known, when
battle was imminent, until the moment for deeds came, after making
his dispositions, he would retire and write his last letters and his
last wishes, and think of those he loved best, and pray for his
country and them. He prayed till the last moment before his actual
service as a commander was required; and in after years, when My Lady
was wife to him in all but name, the lack of a conventional
marriage-tie between them did not prevent that great heart from
mingling the woman he loved best with the last prayers which ascended
to his Creator. But when the moment came for the round shot to be
tearing the decks, and sowing death, the Admiral would be on his
quarter-deck all alert, but smiling like a boy playing a game in which
he is the best player.
It was that light-hearted boy's look he wore while he sat by My Lady
that first night on which I saw them much together.
And as for her, she had just that gracious look of the woman, who has
been the unconquered Amazon all her life, when she has found the man
for whom she will surrender. Not that My Lady had ever been the
unconquered Amazon, but she had every womanly graciousness in her
repertoire, and could use them with a generousness, which made them
genuine, as the occasion demanded. And this was the finest and best of
them. That My Lady was capable of a passionate devotion had been shown
by her fidelity to Mr. Greville. The Admiral was exactly qualified to
take her whole heart. To her imagination, her pride in her country,
her pride of vanity, he appealed more highly than was possible for any
other man living, and to her generous affectionate woman's heart,
which must have been bruised by Mr. Greville's desertion and weary of
Sir William's weakness, his chivalrousness, and the affectionate
_esprit de corps_ which made every man who ever served with him his
slave, came as a balm and a cordial.
These two were all in all to each other that night. The Admiral, as I
have said, alert and smiling, was rarely brilliant for him; My Lady,
with beautiful eager face, and every now and then a sort of happy sob
heaving in that exquisite white bosom, was hanging on his words.
Though I said they were all in all, the Admiral had perforce to
address himself to Her Majesty sufficiently, and from time to time to
call out some toast or make some rally to his captains.
It seemed to me, who was only a boy then, that Her Majesty was of a
purpose devoting her whole attention to Captain Troubridge, to whom
she had given the second place of honour on her left hand--he being
the most distinguished of the captains present. I did not think then
all I am about to say, for I knew less of life, and I had not the
light of what has happened since to guide me; but, testing the
proceedings with these acids, I should say that the daughter of Maria
Theresa was desirous on the one hand of giving Lady Hamilton full play
in subjugating the Admiral, and that on the other hand she was
desirous of bringing all the influences of her beauty, her womanly
charm, her splendid birth, and her queenhood, to bear upon the bluff
British sailor, who was of all the least amenable to women's wiles,
and who was in the future always to be in the balance against the
influence of herself and Lady Hamilton with the Admiral. Speaking from
memory and experience, I picture Captain Troubridge as a little uneasy
in this bower of Armida. But there was one thing which made him to
some extent the willing servant to the Queen of Naples,--Captain
Troubridge was a fighting man, and he had the highest admiration for
the courage, resourcefulness and patriotism of the woman who, married
to a _roi fainéant_, made such a good fight to maintain her kingdom's
place among the nations.
As for myself, the dinner was rather mortifying, for My Lady, after
placing me next to her, forgot my existence, until a lackey, breaking
a crystal goblet on her right hand between her and me, in the attempt
to fill it without disturbing her colloquy with the Admiral, made a
portentous crash which attracted the attention of the whole company,
including even My Lady; who, suddenly becoming aware of my existence,
and feeling that she had treated me rather badly, put her arm round me
and kissed me, with everybody looking. The blood rushed to my head
until I must have looked like the merchant ensign; and, to add to my
confusion, the lady on the other side, who was the wife of an Italian
prince and could not speak a word of English, seized the cue, and
almost took me on her knee in her attempt to make up for her
deficiency as a linguist.
At last that terrible banquet ended, and the company scattered about
the reception-rooms and the terrace overlooking the sea. The Admiral
and My Lady went out on the terrace. Her Majesty remained in the great
room, which she had recently had decorated with frescoes in the style
discovered in the excavations at Pompeji. She made rather an
ostentation of talking to Neapolitans, and principally to the ladies
among them; the subject of their conversation, from their looks, being
the manly beauty of the English officers gathered under the centre
chandelier--a splendid group. In true English style the captains stood
together talking--no doubt of Service matters, just as they would when
they met almost daily on the flagship or in the Admiral's anterooms at
My Lady's palace.
Will, his services not being required by the Admiral, was standing a
little way from them. He was English, and therefore wished to do what
the English did, and yet had too much pride and too good manners to go
nearer to his superior officers; and I humbly took up my position by
him, not expecting him to talk to me upon such an occasion, but from
sheer not knowing what else to do.
In a very few minutes My Lady and the Admiral returned, My Lady
leading the way straight up to the captains. She had by this become so
intimate with Her Majesty that there was no need for her to observe
Court etiquette on entering the presence of the Sovereign. With the
captains she was so natural and unaffected that even Captain
Troubridge was melted.
Hardly had she taken up her position when Donna Rusidda, having spoken
with Her Majesty, upon whom she was attending, and having made her
courtesy with the grace of a Neapolitan girl and a daughter of
generations of courtiers, glided across the room to bring, as it
seemed, a message to her Ladyship, though she lingered afterwards. I
cannot say whether My Lady had an instinct against her. She was all
smiles, as was her wont at such a gathering. But she did not lay her
hand on the girl to detain her, or improvise any of the excuses for
which she had such a happy invention; and after a few minutes of
awkwardness Donna Rusidda was departing, a little crest-fallen, when
her eye fell upon Will, almost in her path, just off the edge of the
group. She motioned him to her.
"Ah, Signor Vill," she said in her own language, her face lighting up
with a smile even more beautiful than My Lady's, for it was rarer:
"why do not all your English officers speak Italian, as you do? They
spend their lives in guarding the coasts of our country, and yet do
not understand any of her children."
Will was quite gallant in his reply: I know what he said. I think we
must have discussed every incident of our life in the Two Sicilies
during the long years in which we have been neighbours and
brothers-in-law on the bleak coast of Kent. He said, "Because they
have no charming lady to take them in hand. I had a beautiful young
mother, who was brought up in Mediterranean ports, and has never
ceased to pine for the sunshine."
What a devoted woman Donna Rusidda was we were to know only too well
afterwards; but she was not above a woman's curiosity or caprice, and,
the Admiral being as usual the feature of the evening, it was not long
before she had manœuvred to get the weather side of Will, where,
while she was talking to him, she could see the Admiral, and where the
great man's eye might occasionally light on her.
She answered his polite little speech with a charming smile, but said
nothing. So he continued,--
"But you must try harder to learn my language too. You must not say
Signor Vill, but Signor Will."
"Vill."
"No, no; not Vill, but Will."
"Oh yes: Ou-ill--Signor Ou-ill."
"No, not Signor Ou-ill, but Signor Will."
"Signor W-W-Will."
"Yes, that is it: Will."
"Well, Signor W-Will," she said coquettishly--"I have to prepare my
mouth for it, or I cannot say it--I cannot stay with you. I have given
my message, and must go back to Her Majesty."
"Oh, Donna Rusidda!" he began reproachfully.
"Oh, what, Signor W-Will?"
"Are you not waiting for some answer from My Lady?"
"Perhaps. Have you a message which you wish the Signora Hamilton to
give to me?"
"None that I would not rather give myself."
"But I cannot take messages from a midshipman."
"I am not a midshipman," he said, with injured dignity.
"You have risen very quickly."
"I was always a lieutenant, from the very first time you saw me."
"You were never a lieutenant when you inflicted that insult on me:
that was a midshipman's trick."
"Will you never forget or forgive?"
"I have forgiven it, or how would the affair have ended?"
"Yes, indeed you did, Signorina," said Will, with warm gratitude in
his voice. "Will you forget it?"
"I am not sure that I can promise that; but I have offered you my
friendship."
"That is the same thing," he said, giving her such a look as I should
not have thought any woman could resist. In all that assemblage there
was no one with high breeding and high courage writ so plainly on his
face; and he was so young, so beautiful, so fair in colouring. Even
his eyes, his proud blue eyes, had for once lost their hardness.
"No, it is not the same thing; I do not want to forget it."
"Then I am not completely forgiven?"
"Oh yes, you are, Signor W-Will. You are already almost my best
friend."
"Who is _the_ fortunate person?"
"You forget that I have a brother and an uncle," she said, with a
touch of dignity.
Will was relieved a little, and his relief was completed when she
broke into a sweet soft smile, which he poetically compared to me
(after his second glass of Madeira) to the moon on the Bay of Naples.
"Tell me, Donna Rusidda, what are to be the privileges of friendship?"
She looked at him with a concern which was to me more engaging than
her archness. "Oh, Signor W-Will, you are not speaking as an Italian
would speak, are you?"
"I would rather die," he replied, with a respectfulness which must
have gone straight to her heart, for she was so grateful, so frank.
"I mean the right of coming to me and speaking to me as you would to
an English girl; of staying by me if we are left, instead of
instantly quitting; of walking with me as you would with an English
girl."
"But your brother?"
"I will speak to my brother. Besides, having once accepted you as my
lover--even the Sicilian custom would give me the right. There is no
jilting by men in Sicily, so that is not provided for in our customs."
"Princess," said Will, "there is nothing in all the Two Sicilies I
value like this permission of yours. But I am strangely sensitive
about codes, and your brother and I have fought--and he has generously
taken me back into his friendship."
"You gave him his life."
"That is true; but that only wiped out the debt I had already
incurred. All that he has done since is a free gift, which leaves me
much again in his debt."
"What do you wish me to do, then?" she asked almost petulantly.
"I wish your brother to repeat your offer to me."
She made a charming figure as she stepped lightly and quickly across
the dark polished floor, gleaming with the reflection of the countless
wax-lights, to where, at the far end of the room from the Queen and
her ladies, her brother was talking to a group of noblemen and State
functionaries. The light shining above and the dark shining below made
just the right foils for the soft white satin of the gown that hung in
graceful folds from her shoulders, which, like her small well-shaped
head, were thrown slightly back. She went up to her brother with a
look which bespoke sisterly confidence and affection, mingled with
respect for the head of the house, but quite unembarrassed. And she
had not spoken with him above a minute or two when they came to where
Will was standing.
"I shall leave you to Ruggiero," she said, preparing to trip away.
"Please don't," he said. "I mean, please don't leave us. We are not
quarrelling, are we, your Highness?"
"Hardly quarrelling," replied the Prince: "I have come to repeat what
my sister said. As you have been engaged, our Sicilian customs permit
of it, and I would trust your honour before my own. You are already my
friend, and you can be my sister's friend, as you would be the friend
of an Englishwoman. She has told me what you both take that to mean,
and, if any one chooses to misinterpret it, I have a sword."
Will was explaining, with genuine feeling, his sense of the honour
thus paid him, when the Admiral spied the Prince and his sister in
their friendly colloquy with him, and stepped forward to speak to the
former. It fired the Admiral's generous soul to see the handsome terms
upon which the combatants of the duel he had frustrated were with each
other.
"Your Highness," he said, "will you and the Princess do me the honour
of taking breakfast on the flagship, when I return from Caserta, and
meeting the General? A small affair--not a reception of Her Majesty by
the British Admiral. My Lady here will receive the ladies; we have a
raree to show you--the little bird which flew on board just before my
late battle, stayed with us all through the action, and is now free of
my cabin. She eats in the prettiest way from my table, and is, I take
it, the most potent and companionable familiar in the whole history of
magic."
The Prince expressed his thanks with elaborate Italian politeness and
Southern warmth. It was the first time he had spoken with the Admiral
since that memorable night in the Palazzo Mont' alti; and being a man
of high courage, and the last of a martial Norman race, the glory of
the Admiral's great deeds appealed with unusual strength to his
imagination.
As the Prince of Favara advanced to meet the Admiral, his sister's
face was full of mischievous laughter. She had in truth created rather
a difficult position for herself, and the best way out of it was to
consider Will discomfited, which in truth he was, though events jumped
so well with his wishes.
"Well, Signor W-Will, did I not tell you?"
"No, I don't think you did."
"Well, I meant to tell you, and you knew I knew, and do not look so
frightened. I do not expect you to propose marriage to me this very
minute, or even to carry me off for a midnight walk; but I am
tired--yes, tired of our desperate Sicilian custom of all the ladies
standing round that dais at one end of the room, as there, with Her
Majesty and all the gentlemen round the dais at the other end, as
there--where you see the Duke, the Prince, the three Counts, and the
Ministers. You English take the centre of the floor. You do not have
customs like we do, which can only be cheated by intrigues."
"Is it very dreadful of you to be standing here?"
"Yes, very dreadful; but not so dreadful as it would be if my brother,
who is my only protector, were not here. And I am going to rebel, and
take English leave."
"But if you were English you would go to places with a married lady
friend; and when you arrived you would leave her, and never find her
again until you wished to escape from somebody or to go home. Perhaps
the Ambassador's wife?"
"No, no," she said quickly.
"Oh, I see," he said: "you know her story."
"It is not that. All Naples knows her story, and many married ladies
in Naples have the same story about themselves. It does not affect her
position in society. People would only laugh and think one mad if one
attacked her for that. No, it is not that: it is simply--well, I do
not wish to be beholden to her. My brother has always been my
protector, and he has a sharp sword. And there is Donna Marziani. You
English know what is meant by a _duenna_, do you not?" she rattled on
in her voluble Italian. She and Will spoke Italian because it was as
easy to him as English, and English was so difficult to her.
"Need we stand here, then? Why should we not go and sit on one of
those stiff-backed couches with the gilt lions' legs which line the
room?"
"Let us: it will be my declaration of independence."
When she and Will moved off in their silent revolution--a revolution
almost as shocking to Sicilian ideas as the late horrible Revolution
in France--My Lady, seeing me stranded like a fish on the rocks at low
water, called to me, "Tubby!" which I resented on so formal an
occasion; nor had I yet forgiven her for having kissed me at the
dinner-table, though there were plenty--the Admiral himself, as I knew
after, and was not too young then to suspect--who would have taken a
kiss from Lady Hamilton under even more arduous conditions. Nor was I
best pleased to find that she had only called me to lay her hand upon
my shoulder in a caressing way while she pursued her conversation with
the Admiral.
He was saying: "This confounded fellow cannot move without five
carriages. I have formed my opinion; I heartily pray I may be
mistaken." And then they went on talking about five-and-thirty
thousand of the finest troops in the world; forty thousand levies;
sending a legion of five thousand by sea; and General Championnet and
the spread of pernicious opinions, till I should have yawned if I had
not had, as I thought, Captain Troubridge's eye on me. I suppose I
must have yawned, for the Queen sent one of her ladies to fetch me. I
stole a glance at Will, but he had no eyes save for Donna Rusidda, who
was, as I thought, merely angling with him. Then I looked at the
captains, but they were far too occupied with great matters to think
of a midshipman, unless he was rampantly misbehaving himself. I did
not, somehow or other, look at the Admiral: I felt I did not mind him;
and then I let myself be spoilt by the beautiful Court ladies--I, who
am now a plain half-pay captain, living on a very modest income in a
cottage at Walmer.