happened at Caserta.
In writing this history of the Admiral, I had it in my mind to have
written each portion as it seemed to me at the time, and not by the
light of after experience; but in practice I have not always found
this possible. I cannot, for instance, refrain from analysing his
behaviour during our short expedition to Malta by my knowledge of how
he was likely to behave under the circumstances derived from a
personal study of the hero during the last seven years of his life.
Now, this voyage to Malta suggests to me that he had not so completely
convinced his conscience as the Journal would lead us to suppose. When
the Admiral was sick at heart his indisposition was generally
reflected in his bodily health; but during this expedition to Malta,
which only lasted from the 15th of October to the 5th of November,
including the voyage there and back, which took nine days going and
five returning (our outward voyage, it must be remembered, being round
the Island of Sicily instead of through the Strait of Messina), his
spirits were as high as I ever knew them except on the eve of
battle--as witness his treatment of the Marquis of Niza, who commanded
the Portuguese squadron. This was in his very finest manner, both as a
diplomatist and as a bluff British sailor. The Marquis' squadron was
doing sentry's work for us outside the harbour of Valetta, which
impregnable place the treachery or incapacity of the Grand Master had
surrendered to the French without a blow being struck. This was the
place which the Admiral said that you could not get into, if it was
undefended, because you would want somebody inside to unlock the
gates. The situation was that the French had Valetta; but that there
were so few of them that the Maltese, who have only the heart of a
rabbit, retained the rest of the island, and talked in a large way of
the French surrendering. They talked in such a large way, in fact,
that every one in Naples believed the French ready to surrender
whenever the islanders were supplied with arms and stores and money.
When our Admiral arrived, his instinct for grasping the heart of a
situation told him that, even against his audacity and genius for
attack, and his powerful ships, there was not the likelihood of an
early surrender. He observed that the garrison had not begun to touch
their bullocks; and decided, after making arrangements for the proper
conduct of the blockade, to return to Naples, where he felt that his
presence could be of effect in putting the forces of the kingdom into
motion against the French.
Now, I will not say that he was not a vain man; but no one can deny
that his vanity took the form of recognising the value of what he had
achieved, and of almost boyish pleasure in it, not of considering
himself equal to doing what was patently above his powers. If he had a
high opinion of what he could do, he bore it out with high actions.
Any vanity he had before the event was the outcome of invincible
courage, invincible confidence in his officers and men, and a sense of
duty to his country which would not be satisfied without the
completest results.
The kind of vanity of which the Admiral was guilty before the event is
shown by his behaviour at the late battle, in which, with darkness
coming on and without a chart, he took his fleet in to fight a
squadron supported by batteries and land forces, which had enjoyed all
the time they needed to make a position impregnable, actually sending
half his ships into the shallow water between the French and the
shore, to which they had anchored as close as they thought safe.
Our Admiral's vanity before the event was of the do-and-die sort; he
was ready to face destruction at any instant in order to take an
advantage of an enemy who, not being equally ready, left certain risks
at his mercy. He recalls to my mind the old story of the king who
threw his daughter's glove into a lion's den, and told her two suitors
that the first who brought it out should have her hand. The Golden
Knight asked the Silver Knight if they should fight or draw lots to
see who should have the privilege of making the first attempt. The
Silver Knight said that no wife was worth such a risk, whereupon the
Golden Knight leaped into the midst of the lions and picked up the
glove without one of them offering to touch him. Our Admiral was
always ready to leap into a lion's den.
It was his vanity at this minute to consider that the conduct of
affairs in Naples depended on his presence; but none the less, if he
had believed that his presence could have captured Malta, he would
have stayed there until he had captured it or died in the attempt. He
was the last man to leave a thing undone which he believed he could
do, and his idea of what might be achieved by desperate valour the
affair of Teneriffe had shown.
I had forgotten the Marquis of Niza, who had shown considerable energy
and good-will in blockading Valetta--for which purpose, there being no
likelihood of any French line-of-battle ships appearing, Portuguese
_of the line_ did as well as any other.
I cannot remember whether or no the Marquis was an admiral in his own
service, but he was at all events superior in rank to any of the
English officers left at Naples, and conceived it to be essential to
his dignity that he should be recognised as being in command of the
station while he was there. The Admiral, in his character of bluff
British sailor dealing with a pretentious foreigner of whose capacity
he had had no sufficient proof, and whom he could not believe to be
comparable to Captain Troubridge, the English senior officer on the
station, who was only a post-captain, wrote:--
"_Vanguard_, October 24th, 1798.
"My Lord,--I am honoured with your Excellency's letter of this
evening, and in my public situation I have the honour to
acquaint you that I consider your Excellency as an officer
serving under my command, and standing precisely in the same
situation as an English Rear-admiral, junior to me; which is,
having no power or authority to give the smallest order to any
Ship or Vessel but those who I may think right to place, by
order, under your command.
"I have the honour to be, etc.,
"Horatio Nelson."
But the same day, being grateful to him for favours past and to come,
in his character of diplomatist he wrote to him as follows:--
"Off Malta, October 24th, 1798.
"My Lord,--Having answered your public letter as my duty called
me to do, I beg leave to assure you of my very great respect for
your character, and that I shall not ever forget your zeal in
the blockade of this place. If your Excellency had recollected,
I am confident your knowledge of service would not have
occasioned you the trouble of writing me a letter. On service
with us it is necessary for the Commander-in-Chief, or the
Officer Commanding by order from the Commander-in-Chief, to give
the Superior Officer, when thought right to detach, orders to
take such Ships, and Captains of such Ships to obey their
superior Officer serving under the Commander-in-Chief or
detached Commander. In the present orders to your Excellency,
no ships are placed under your orders but those of Her Most
Faithful Majesty.
"I am, etc.,
"Horatio Nelson."
"Her Most Faithful Majesty" was of course the Queen of Portugal.
At Malta he did nothing beyond sending a _cartel_ to the French
General and Admiral summoning them to surrender Valetta, which they
were within an ace of doing, although our Admiral knew perfectly well
the place was impregnable to a force much superior to anything he had
to bring against it. But the Frenchmen plucked up their courage at the
last moment, so there was nothing for us to do except to sail back to
Naples, leaving a blockading force.
We had comparatively little intercourse with the people on shore, for
the Admiral found it hard to get over his contempt for their
braggadocio and feebleness in attack, though there is a surprising
amount of persistence in the Maltese character. I, and I suppose other
officers in the _Vanguard_ (I was now promoted lieutenant), were more
interested in rumours of love than rumours of war. My Lady's
undisguised admiration for the Admiral was naturally a fruitful topic
of conversation. It was still only a laughing matter: not that any one
ever laughed at our beloved Commander--the jest was at her.
I knew more even on that matter than did most of them, and I had also
on my conscience Will's confidences. It is strange how love breaks
down pride. It had never struck me that it was possible for Will
Hardres to condescend to confidences; but he had not been in love with
this slip of a girl above a week or two before he had to cry _Peccavi_
to me, just to have the pleasure of pronouncing her name.
It had not, of course, escaped his shipmates that he was paying her
attention; but seeing that he was the only officer on the three ships
who could speak Italian (except the _Vanguard's_ chaplain, who did not
count), they thought it natural that he should devote himself to the
most beautiful girl at the Court. They of course knew nothing of the
obstacles in the way of such a proceeding in Sicily, which were broken
down in such an extraordinary manner, and regarded his duel with her
brother simply in the light of an introduction.
Will was full of an afternoon which he had spent in her company the
day after our expedition to Pompeji and the banquet at the Queen's
Palace, at Caserta, whither the Admiral had driven some twenty miles
to dine and spend the night. General Mack had arrived two days before,
and it was the desire of the Queen that these two should know one
another better, as the campaign seemed to depend upon their concerted
action.
The Admiral, who, as I have mentioned, had alluded to the General in
no very complimentary terms the night before, at the Queen's banquet,
was more favourably impressed after a personal meeting: in fact, I
have heard him say afterwards, with a bitterness unusual in him, that
Mack owed his advancement in life to the power of giving an impression
of a capacity he did not possess. At the time he said to Will, who was
in attendance on him in his private suite, taking certain orders from
him before he retired to bed--"He is active and has an intelligent
eye, and will do well, I have no doubt. He assures us that the Emperor
has desired the King of Naples to begin, and he will support him. Mack
says he will march in ten days; their Majesties have given him their
confidence, and I feel I am in full possession of it. The Queen was so
impressed with him that she could not help saying--'General, be to us
by land what my hero Nelson has been by sea.' I have endeavoured to
impress the General with a favourable impression of me, and I think I
have succeeded."
The Court was at Caserta, to which it paid frequent visits in the
summer and autumn--mainly, no doubt, at this moment to be able to
dispense with the unwelcome presence of the French Ambassador while it
was receiving the General who had come from the Emperor to lead the
Neapolitan forces against the French. The Court could go to Caserta
without attracting much notice, because there was a large portion
still remaining of the old feudal forest, among whose ilexes the King
loved to hunt; and Her Majesty, who was very wasteful, loved throwing
away money on the collection, under her personal superintendence, of
all the water in the neighbouring mountains for her artificial
waterfall, fifty feet high, and vast systems of fountains. The
Hamiltons generally went with them, and her adroit Ladyship was at the
pains to have about her persons of position skilled in all the musical
and theatrical diversions in which the dissipated Court delighted.
There was a great deal of method in Her Majesty's mad extravagances.
Her waterworks employing so much labour as they did, and being
personally superintended by herself, gave her the opportunity of
conversing with all manner of persons without exciting suspicion, and
her enthusiasm for dragging visitors round to see her operations gave
her the opportunity of taking people like the Admiral and General
Mack, whom she wished to consult, out of reach of eavesdroppers. If
they had been closeted together for a great while in the Palace, all
Naples would have discussed what they had said or were supposed to
have said; but if they were being dragged to see the waterfall-tunnel,
or the casino of S. Leucio, which was quite three miles from the
Palace, it was nothing.
My Lady did not accompany them: walking exercise fatigued her, though
she would dance or stand about at a reception for a number of hours.
The Queen commanded the attendance of one of her ladies, and Donna
Rusidda volunteered. The Admiral was attended by Will. The General,
for reasons of his own, preferred not to have any of his staff with
him. As he promised a good deal more than he was justified in doing,
perhaps witnesses would have been inconvenient. My Lady kept General
Acton, the Prime Minister, who was tottering for the moment, and
therefore not to be trusted with secrets till his position should be
decided at least one way or another. But I doubt not that the excuse
on which she kept him was that she had important confidences for him
from Her Majesty, which the others could not be allowed to suspect.
Sir William was like the King. At really important moments people were
apt to forget him. And indeed he was by no means well of the fever
yet, though the drive over the hills had invigorated him.
At a point the Queen bade Donna Rusidda show Will the ancient trout
which she had reared to such gigantic proportions by hand-feeding with
frogs, saying that she would call when she needed her. And Donna
Rusidda, understanding this only for a polite dismissal while affairs
of state were being discussed, and having her brother's permission to
take with Will the liberty of an Englishwoman, kept at a decent
distance for the rest of the afternoon.
Pretty soon the Queen sat down on a bandstand, that stood in the midst
of the principal fountains, with open sides, but roofed in the Chinese
style, of which she was so fond. Here, with the roof to protect them
from the sun, they could be sure of no one approaching them unseen;
and as fountains of almost every variety were playing with extreme
beauty, it was quite natural to sit for a long hour to watch them. At
a little distance off there was an arbour to protect Will and Donna
Rusidda from the sun.
"W-Will," said she, as they sat down, "is our friendship a success?"
"That is for you to say. How could it be otherwise for me, when it
gives me the companionship of so charming a lady?"
"That does not follow: people can be too good friends as well as not
good enough."
"I hope that I have not presumed?"
"Oh no," she replied: "you have been what I knew I could trust you to
be--a model of honourable behaviour."
"Have I been a dolt--a fool--in not recognising feelings for which I
did not dare to hope?"
"On the contrary," she said, with a touch of _hauteur_, "if you had
flattered yourself that such feelings existed, and had presumed upon
them, our friendship would have ended."
(I could hardly believe my ears when Will described himself as having
submitted tamely to such talk.)
"I am glad," he replied, meaning it truly, and meaning yet more truly
that he was sorry; and he must have had an expression which told the
subtler truth, for she broke into one of her rare smiles and said:
"I did not mean to hurt you, Signor Vill"; and he recovered himself,
and corrected her--"Will."
"W-W-W-Will." And then she burst out into a merry little laugh.
(Lovers treasure up the smallest trifles of memory.)
Thus emboldened, he asked her in turn--"And has our friendship been a
success?"
"Beyond a doubt," she said, "for it lasts, and people have accepted
it. My brother has been out about it very early this morning, but _he_
was not hurt."
"Is that all you have to say about it?"
"By no means. This morning was the first of our friendship, and I have
hardly ever enjoyed a morning so much."
"This morning?" he said, with surprise mixed with coldness. "After we
had arrived?"
"Certainly: how could I enjoy our friendship before?"
"Why, we did nothing this morning except sit about the theatre
watching My Lady arrange the scenery for her Attitudes, and rehearsing
a few mountebanks in their parts."
"You are very severe, Signor W-Will. The Admiral and I were in fits of
laughter."
"I thought it very dull. My Lady's attitudes are certainly wonderful;
but I don't think that I care for them so much that I want to see her
in the morning arranging the backgrounds for her performance at
night."
"Nor I," she said, with considerable warmth and spirit. "In fact, I
think we have too much _attitudes_ altogether. What does a man like
your Admiral, a great hero who is directing the destinies of the
world, want with this perpetual round of _attitudes_, _buffos_, _bals
masqués_, and _fêtes_? They are all very well for us of the Two
Sicilies, who have to eat and drink and be merry until the flood comes
and swamps us into one of the great Powers; but a man like your
Admiral does not need them--he needs rest."
"I think you are sweeping, Donna Rusidda. After all, when the stress
of a severe campaign is over, what the fighter requires is change more
than rest. Men can go to sleep while they are fighting at a battle, if
they are only weary enough. What the hard fighter and the hard worker
need is recreation."
"And is this recreation?"
"There is no recreation for me like the society of beautiful and
gracious ladies such as yourself."
She bowed with mock gravity, and said, with a touch of bitterness in
her voice, "You mean like the Ambassador's wife."
"No," he answered: "she is very beautiful, wonderfully and uniformly
gracious, and very clever; but I do not like seeing the Admiral blind
to her play-actress side. He takes everything in her seriously, while
I, who am a mere boy----"
"Not always a boy, W-Will. You are sometimes a boy with the wiseness
of a man, and sometimes a man with the foolishness of a boy."
He felt the blood rushing to his face: her criticism was rather
franker than he liked, but she had addressed him with greater
familiarity than she had yet allowed herself.
"You do not like her," she said. "Well, I will tell you: your Admiral,
who has a weasel's eye for the French, may be caught napping by a
woman; and she is very much in love with him--as any woman might be,"
she added, with a little tragedy sigh; "for _men_ are so scarce,
though you will be one some day, Signor W-Will. And so you see she
plays to him, with her beauty and her engagingness, and her wisdom and
her foolishness; for the last card you play to the person, whose love
you wish very much, is your foolishness, which is the greatest
sacrifice you can offer." Then she continued: "But it was so comical
her bringing us all--the Admiral and you and General Mack and the
whole Court--to see her arranging her backgrounds, which you will all
see made real by lamplight this evening, as if it was a matter of such
great moment to us all to see a carpenter nail canvas to a post, or a
gardener bringing in a poor palm tree sawn off at the roots to fit
into a hole in the stage. Shall I tell you what I think?"
"I wish I knew all your thoughts."
"Well, you shall know one of them."
"What is that?"
"That it is sometimes quite a fortunate thing to lose your arm. For if
the Admiral had not lost his arm he might have had to nail up the
canvas, or screw the palm tree into the hole."
Will gave a kind of groan, which she pretended not to note.
"It was much more entertaining for him to sit by--I mean to sit in a
box and watch a servant dancing attendance on her ideas, which changed
like a chameleon's."
Will hoped so, but kept silence.
"I never enjoyed myself so much, Signor W-Will. Your Admiral is so
kind to ladies. Perhaps many of his smiles were conversation, for he
speaks so little Italian, and I not much more English: you must teach
me English, Signor W-Will, that I may talk to him without giving him
trouble. Yes, our friendship is a great success."
Suddenly the Admiral joined them. The Queen and General Mack had left
off speaking French, and begun to talk Austrian-German--most likely
because they were very interested about some point which they could
not properly explain to each other except in their native language.
The Admiral, however, who was very sensitive, took it as a hint, and
fell back to join Will and Donna Rusidda.
"Well, you two happy people," he began--"with nothing to talk about
but yourselves?"
"It was sad for Sicilians," she replied. By this time she could
understand English readily, though she spoke it with difficulty.
"Well, how have you been entertaining yourselves?"
"We was not; we was on duty, as you say."
"Yes, duty--excellent, as all our countries expect of us, and
generally give us precious little help in doing it, though my Lord St.
Vincent did give me the best ships afloat."
"We was waiting for you for the pleasure."
The Admiral made his best bow, and he put on that expression of his
which reminded me of a dog pricking its ears. General Mack had
doubtless been a little prosy, and occupied much of the conversation
with what he was going to do with the French when he had beaten them.
"Well, what pleasure are we going to begin with?"
"We shall show to you the fountains."
"Capital," said the Admiral. "I have been looking at them, you know,
on the sly, while the General was composing the proclamation which he
is going to make to the cities of the Peninsula."
"Oh, but you shall not have seen them--all."
"Madam," said the Admiral, pretending to be offended, "I have, as you
please to notice, only one eye; but I think that the French at any
rate will allow that I am a pretty good hand at taking in the whole
situation."
"Sit-oo-ation," she repeated, laughing; "that is a good word. No, I do
not think that you have--how can I say--caught--yes, caught the whole
sit-oo-ation."
"Madam, I hope I shall never contradict a lady."
"Then you shall see a fine sit-oo-ation. First we shall go in the
_barca_," she cried, jumping into a light boat, which was moored to
the marble steps of the artificial lake. She made Will row, while she
sat in the stern with the Admiral, pointing out the exquisite little
temples and marble nymphs and couches and bridges with which the lake,
which was really more like a little river running between and round a
number of little islands full of the rarest and most picturesque
exotics, was studded. Will rowed with alacrity. The Admiral was
clearly enjoying himself, and anything that gave him the least
gratification was the sincerest pleasure to Will: he did not note that
he was being left out of the conversation. Presently Donna Rusidda
demanded to be landed in a beautiful _rosetum_, in which the roses
were trained round a framework into a huge green crown, a model of
that worn by Her Majesty's mother, the great Empress Maria Theresa.
There were quite a number of hoops to it, and the rose flowers made
the gems; while the leaves changing with the autumn--the season in
which it was intended to be seen--gave a golden colour to the ribs.
In the centre of it, underneath the boss which contained the great gem
of the real crown, was a vase of immense value--ancient Grecian of the
best period--lying on the ground, which looked as if it had fallen but
recently from the slender marble "stele" of a satyr with four faces,
brought from the excavations at Pompeji.
"Oh, Signor W-Will, the wind has blow over Her Majesty's favourite
vase!" Naturally, Will sprang forward to replace it; and, balancing it
with great care, started to rejoin them where they were standing on a
beautiful tesselated pavement, adorned with the signs of the Zodiac.
All of a sudden, from dozens of little jets, a great shower of water
met him full in the face. He dashed back to get out at the other side,
only to meet another shower, which, coming into play on him from a
greater distance, was more like spray. He tried a third path, and
again met the spray; but, grasping that all the paths were similarly
commanded, dashed through it and the heavier shower which greeted him
nearer, and flew to the pavement where they were standing, looking
like a seal. Something in the pavement caught his eye, and, looking
more closely, he perceived that each Zodiacal sign had for its centre
mosaic a little bronze cube, raised slightly above the rest. Donna
Rusidda shrieked with laughter as he put his foot on the whole twelve
in succession, starting the shower on each of the corresponding twelve
paths of the leafy crown of Austria; and the Admiral, though he would
have been sorry for Will if he had reflected, gave the great roar of
laughter in which he indulged whenever he was extravagantly tickled.
He was a boy all his life, in the intervals of anxiety caused by the
blindness of the Government, on whom he depended for ships and
supplies to strike at the French, and irritation and depression caused
by his wretched health. He had, as his whole behaviour during the
sojourn in the Two Sicilies showed, a thorough appreciation of the
masqueradings and buffooneries and practical jests which are to the
Neapolitan part of his everyday life, and to the grave Sicilian an
occasional recreation. These water-mazes are very popular with the
rich; and in some instances, like the present, immense sums are spent
on their construction: indeed, they form the staple of amusement at an
excursion to an unfamiliar palace or villa, where only one or two are
in possession of the knowledge where the traps lie. You are safe
nowhere: the shower may be lying in wait for lovers in a retired walk,
or for a whole company on the most frequented lawn. But the water is
laid on more lightly for the most part than Donna Rusidda laid it on
for Will.
Will was in high dudgeon; he had no liking for practical jests at any
time, and this being put into a ridiculous and humiliating light
before the woman he loved, maddened him. If it had been a man who had
played the jest upon him he would have thrashed him first, and fought
a duel to the death afterwards--if the thrashed person wished to carry
the matter further. And though the Admiral had taken no part in the
jest, his very presence, had he been any other man, would have been
sufficient for hot-headed Will. But the Admiral was to him hardly a
human being,--he reverenced him so, and owed him such a debt of
gratitude; and so there was nothing for it but to walk behind them
with his laced hat and blue coat, and the nankeen breeches whose fit
had been his pride, for they could hardly have been closer if they had
been carved in marble, looking like shrunk grapes.
The Admiral, by this, was woefully sorry for him; for that great man
did not forget small things, and it was in his mind that only in the
few days that they had been back in Naples had Will possessed a
lieutenant's uniform of his own, and that the English tailor to the
Sicilian court charged as exiles will who leave their homes not to
save their lives but to fill their purses. It brought to his mind a
boyish figure which he had seen only six months since standing
outside his state-room door getting well dripped in his new
midshipman's rig, because he would not come in under the lee of his
mother till he had received the command of his officer. He remembered
also that the little fair slip of a mother was none too well clad to
come aboard a ship tossing at her anchors in a stiff cold gale off St.
Helen's, and that that same little mother had said to him, "You will
take care of him, Sir Horatio ... I do not mean in the face of the
enemy, but I have only a slender purse; his father was killed when he
was a lieutenant."
The Admiral's money was always burning holes in his pockets, and he
made up his mind _instanter_ to present Will with a new outfit, so
that what he had on might dry for his second best.
Just for the present Will was too hurt and too humiliated to think of
his poverty, as he stalked a few paces behind Donna Rusidda and the
Admiral, who, having made up his charitable resolve, soon melted again
under the smiles of the beautiful girl.
"It would be much better if you had not seen the all sit-oo-ation,"
said Donna Rusidda.
"Oh, I can easily make that all right," answered the Admiral cheerily.
"Is it so? I think the Signor W-Will he look like the thunder."
"Well, I think he looks more like the rain; but he can thunder, I
assure you, and lighten too."
"Perhaps I oughted not to do it, but in Naples it is very droll."
"Well, of course I had rather you had done it to me, or to my captain.
I always make a point of considering a boy's pride more than a man's.
I was a very little chap when I first went to sea, Princess. The first
thing the boatswain said when he saw me, was that I was not long for
this world. But I have cheated him," he continued, cutting a comical
little caper.
"Do not speak it too soon, Eccellenza: you are not so old."
"Not old!--why, I am forty."
"The Ambassador's wife she gave the ball on your native day, is it
not?"
He nodded pleasantly, with a smile at her English.
"You had the earth under your feet before you were of forty years."
"Mostly sea, Princess, I can assure you."
"I ought to have spoken _world_ instead of _earth_, is it so?"
"Dear Princess, I was but jesting to turn off your flattery. I
understood you perfectly."
"Please not to jest against my English, Eccellenza," she begged, with
a rich rush of colour to her dusky cheeks: "I feel the _mauvaise
honte_ at speaking it, but strive to defeat myself."
"My dear young lady! you make me feel more ashamed of myself than the
whole French fleet could. If I were to wrestle with your language, as
you do with mine, you would keep in such a fit of laughing that you
could not understand a single word."
Will noted the look of unutterable gratitude on the girl's face, and
put down the whole Sicilian nation as more theatrical than My Lady.
"Will you take it unhappily, if I speak something, Eccellenza?"
"No, I am sure I shall not: you may say anything you like to me," he
replied gallantly.
"The Ambassador's wife she is very beautiful."
"She is the loveliest woman on earth," he said warmly, "and the best.
There never was a woman so good-hearted, and so thoroughly good."
"She loves you."
"Only for the sake of our country, Princess. Her patriotism takes the
form of gratitude to me, who have been fortunate enough to be
intimately connected with the salvation of her country before her
eyes. I am not to her a mere man, but the saviour of England, and the
Sicilies, from the wicked murderous French. Nelson the man is nothing
to her. He is, as you see, a little one-eyed, one-armed being, obliged
to brush his hair over his forehead to hide an untidy scar. If she
thought of the man at all she would think of a big fine man like
Captain Troubridge; and if she is a bit motherly to me, why, so she is
to my mids, and it's all because I'm such a poor little thing playing
hide-and-seek with fever."
"Yes; Miladi has the mother's heart," she said slowly, as if the words
were extorted from her; "but the mother's heart it is a woman's heart,
and what woman, not of the enemy, would not find her heart--graz-ee-us
is it you say?"
"Certainly, gracious--that is what she is, a woman of women. There is
no one like her--so generous, so enthusiastic, so truly noble."
"She is very _lov-ly_; and how are other women to show that they have
such hearts to the liberator of their country?"
"By attending to the comforts of my officers and sailors. We brought
many badly wounded with us, who need the attention of women to give
them back their full manhood."
"_Hélas!_ it is not possible. Our women have not such hearts; they
could not give tenderness without also their love. But the English,
they are not so. To us friendship between man and woman is like fire:
we may warm the tips of our fingers at a--I do not know your
word--_scaldino_, but we cannot have your English open fires, for we
have not the chimneys."
"Eccellenza!" called the Queen.
"Coming, Your Majesty," answered the Admiral, hopping off. They were
very great friends, the Queen and the Admiral, and mingled playfulness
with the most solemn and important business. Very likely Her Majesty
had diplomatic reasons. It is quite easy to give the numbers of an
army to a man who is playing ball with you, or trying to take off a
_pulcinello_.
Donna Rusidda turned round to Will, who was still very grim and hurt,
and looked as though he would give his whole prospects to hide himself
in the little Saracen building which the Queen had erected as a kind
of summer-house, and which was the last piece of shelter before the
Palace, that rose with the splendour and solitariness of a temple half
a mile away.
"Oh W-Will," she said, returning with great relief to Italian, "I am
sorry. Go in there, and I will tell you what I will do for you."
The house stood in a little thicket of laurels, from which only its
flat terraced roof and turret were visible at the Palace.
He did not move.
"Come, W-Will," she said kindly. "There is no one here to see you, and
it is very comfortable. You can quite well stay here until I have a
change sent to you. I do not love the Ambassador's wife, but she is
generous-hearted, and if I tell her what I have done, and how sorry I
am, I know she will see that you get your change without any one
knowing it, except your servant."
He was a little mollified, but stood irresolute. She laid her hand on
his arm to draw him in; her touch thrilled him, and he could resist no
longer, especially when, with a sudden impulse, she bent low and
kissed his hand, saying: "I have a confession to make--will you
forgive me?"
"Of course I will: how can I help it?" he replied, but still with a
touch of something--anger or hurt--in his voice.
"Do not speak till you have heard," she said anxiously, and not far
from weeping.
"Oh! but I cannot help forgiving you anything."
"I hope it is so," she said gently, "for it needs much forgiveness
what I am about to tell you. I did it because you are so
handsome--such a _grand seigneur_: I could not bear to think that that
little homely-looking man with his plainly-fitting clothes, the
greatest man in all the world, should look nothing--one of the
people--if it were not for the leadership written in his face, beside
one of his officers--a mere boy. Yes, you are a mere boy, W-Will, or I
would not have done it to you; and I did it to make him laugh at you,
and to humiliate you before him, that he might be exalted in my
imagination and look like a conqueror. Now strike me or kill me: I
have told you the whole truth."
"Rusidda," said Will, addressing her thus for the first time, and
taking her hands to hold her, while he looked into her burning face as
if he were going to see through into her soul, "you have hurt me on my
tenderest point; but I have forgiven you, because no one saw it but
yourself and my Admiral, and him I so worship and reverence that I
would go through not only death but humiliation for his sake. And you
I love."
Her great grey Sicilian eyes, which could look black or blue in
certain lights, and which had been fixed nervously on his, fell before
his gaze, and he thought that she was won. She let him kiss her
without resisting, and it was a good many seconds before she could
find words to stem the impetuous torrent of love in which he half
besought her, half claimed her for his wife after all. At last she
managed to say:
"W-Will--yes, I can call you dear W-Will--I can never marry you."
"Why?" he broke in: "you cannot have become betrothed to another, or
you would not have spoken as you have about friendship. I know how
strict is the etiquette of your Sicilian betrothals."
"Oh no, I am not betrothed," she sighed, "nor ever can be."
"You are not under a monastic vow?" he asked. He knew nothing of such
vows, but felt that now, when all Europe was a battle-field, the sword
might find a way to cut many knots.
"None of my family have ever taken the vow," she said proudly; "it has
been part of the code handed down from our Norman ancestor, who won
his principality by bearding the Pope. If we had had a few cardinals
in the family, we should not have been as poor as we are now."
"Poor?" he said, the word arresting him. "I shall not always be poor
in these fighting days. Each of our captains will have a thousand
pounds out of the three prizes we burnt at the Nile, not to mention
the prizes we saved; and even I shall have----"
"Oh no," she said sadly, "I was not thinking of that. I would marry
you if I could love you, W-Will, if you had not a _carlin_ but your
pay, and had to live when you were on shore in the tower, which is
about all of the Favara we inhabit. You would have to live on oranges
and polenta and Indian figs, and perhaps we could buy a little
macaroni sometimes," she added, forcing a smile. "We are so poor, we
two, the last of the House of Favara, that we have to let our domain
to a farmer for orange and lemon growing, and let him use part of our
palace for his business. We could not live if we were not in the
household of the Queen. It is not poverty that prevents."
"Then what is it, dear?" asked Will. She still let him kiss her.
"Oh, just that I cannot ever marry you, because I cannot ever love
you, as I know Englishwomen love their husbands."
"I will marry you, and gladly, even thus."
"No, W-Will, I could not marry you--I cannot even think of it. It is
quite impossible. All I can be to you is your very dearest friend."
"May I not try to win you from your decision?"
"Oh yes," she said, "if you have any mercy on me, try, and I will pray
the Mother of God that you may prevail: but alas! it is not, is not,
possible."
"May I kiss you when we are like this?"
A ghost of a smile flitted across his face as he caught sight of
himself in a mirror which had a Chinese landscape painted on it. His
smile bore fruit: it brought her back to herself. She laughed--"Yes,
dear W-Will; kiss me, woo me your very best way, and win me--do!"
Will was very thankful for that laugh, that sudden return to her
self-possession and everyday voice. To a man of his sensitive
temperament it is not easy to act on such a permission from a woman
highly strung; he feels that he is taking advantage of her
weakness--that he is acting on a submission she would not have made in
calmer moments. But if she gives the same permission when she is
calmed down, and with a little laugh, he feels that he is playing
fair.