You can rely that I, at any rate, was uncommonly glad when the Admiral
gave his orders that we were to accompany him to My Lady's hospitable
table, for it had been mighty dull on board ship for a long while
past.
We had been kept very close--ready to move. Of course we had none of
the anxieties of the Admiral, but when things are going ill the
atmosphere of a whole ship will get affected. And we could see that
things had been going mightily ill; and the talk was not of a merry
fight, such as we had had at the Nile, but of our being squeezed out
of the Mediterranean by the slowness and treachery and cowardice and
folly of one ally after another, and the coming of a French fleet into
the Mediterranean, and the Admiral being unable to wait and fight it,
because Commodore Duckworth would not come down from Minorca. And the
Admiral had been miserably fretful and out of spirits, and more
sea-sick than we had ever known him. And Will, poor fellow, had been
ill at ease too, because of the non-furtherance of his suit to Donna
Rusidda, the meaning of whose continued deafness he could not
understand, because she ever seemed well disposed to him, and glad to
see him, and gentle to his caresses. But of their marriage, which he
and her brother the Prince desired so earnestly, she would hear
nothing, though she was pleased to have him urge it with the best
force he could.
My Lady had a palace on the Marina, some way beyond the palace of the
Prince of Butera, the Sicilian noble who had most influence with the
Queen, and nearer to the Flora, as they call the extraordinarily fine
public garden, full of various kinds of palms, and of fountains of
white marble shaded with the papyrus.
After we had dined, and the beautiful Sicilian summer night had
fallen, with the heavens so starlit that you could make out the
sapphire blueness of the sky, and with the air soft as silk, we drove
in the Embassy coaches up and down the Marina, where it is the custom
of the modish in Palermo to assemble on warm nights. After a little we
got down, and went with the Admiral and My Lady to the kiosk, where
there was music, and all the _beau monde_ eating what they call in
this part "ices"--a kind of cream iced and flavoured with fruit, so
shaped and coloured as to almost exactly resemble the fruit from which
it is flavoured.
Will was mightily offended by the _padrone_, who, perceiving that he
understood Italian, cautioned him not to be taken in in the same way
as some English sailor who had patronised the kiosk, and, taking an
ice orange for a veritable orange, had bitten off half of it with the
result of an outrageous toothache, and a knock-down for the waiter.
Will did not say whether the cause of his dudgeon was that he
conceived the landlord to have confused him with a common sailor, or
because the landlord did not perceive at a glance that he was one of
those to whom it is an instinct not to make a social mistake.
We found the confection, which was new to Englishmen, very good; and I
should be ashamed to say how many I ate, for as the Admiral was
enjoying the music and the fluttering in of gay people to whom he had
no need of being presented, My Lady plied us with the iced cream, as
a kind of sop to our good-nature, for keeping us there without
consulting us. She had, as I suppose, some private reason of her own.
Will had not the like appetite, but he kept an "ice" in front of him
and trifled with it; expecting momentarily, though I know not why, to
see the graceful form of Donna Rusidda enter, with her brother the
Prince. But she did not come; and last of all our carriages were
called, and we drove up to the ten o'clock service in the Palace
chapel. Since the death of the poor little prince in the passage from
Naples, Her Majesty had had services every morning and evening at ten,
and I know not how much oftener, celebrated in her chapel, most of
which she at first attended. But she had too masterful a mind to
continue thus for long, when the air was so full of events; and
consequently, though the services were celebrated, the attendance grew
slender.
The Queen's mourning had also prevented us from becoming familiar with
the Palace, as we were at Naples. Indeed, we had hardly been into it,
except with messages from the Admiral, which were generally received
in a large shabby chamber, hung with poor portraits of former
Viceroys, near the head of the red marble staircase which wound round
and round, three stories up, I think.
The Palace chapel is on the story below; and as it possesses no
exterior, but is merely as it were a hall in the present Palace,
whatever it may have been in the time of that Norman Prince who built
it; and as young naval officers do not speak much of such matters, I
was altogether unprepared for the glory which burst upon us when we
pushed the leather-covered folding doors open and stepped into a
little _basilica_, I think they call it, full of the smell of the
sweetest incense, and very softly but perfectly lit with huge silver
lamps hung from the Arabic ceiling, and fed with aromatic oil, which
displayed to me what looked like a scene from the "Arabian Nights."
The chapel had tall Moorish-looking arches and walls covered with
golden mosaics, and a wondrously carved white marble candlestick as
tall as two or three men, and its floors and altar-parapet and lower
walls were made up of huge panels and pieces of rich crimson porphyry
divided with white marble, and the inlaid mosaic borders they call the
Cosmato. The quaint shapes, the rich scents and colours almost stunned
my senses; and gorgeously robed priests, who seemed all white and
jewels, passed to and fro performing some solemn and beautiful
service, of which I could make nothing, but of which even I, an
irreverent young Protestant sailor, felt the holiness. The music, too,
was sweet and rich and pervading. I could imagine any one who was
stricken to the heart, as the poor Queen had been in those first days,
coming here for comfort. It was so above the ordinary human, as to
suggest ideas of the presence of the Divine.
As soon as I could get over my astonishment, I noted that there was
nothing corresponding to our pews,--there were but a few loose chairs,
which those of the Palace, high or low, who came in to worship, picked
up and carried where they would.
The Admiral motioned us to place some of these in the shadow near the
door, that, not being of the religion, we might sit as unobtrusive as
possible. The service which had just begun was to last some half-hour,
and My Lady had told him that he should wait through it for the music.
When I got over my feeling of awe, I was a little disturbed by what
seemed to me the antics of the service: the small boys dressed, as it
seemed to my ignorant mind, like so many small priests, who were for
ever bringing some book or robe or other article from the opposite
point of the chapel to where the priest was performing; the tinkling
of the little silver bells, which directed sometimes the movements of
the boys, sometimes of the worshippers (they seemed to know which
without being told); the swinging of censers; the changing of the
robes of the performing priest; and the breaking out of a sweet clear
intonation from some unsuspected corner.
But Will, as I have said, was not imaginative; and I think in his
soul, having been very well brought up by his mother, he hated the
whole thing as Popish. He would not even be amused as I was at a
confession that was going on at the other side of the door from us,
where a lady, evidently of high rank, dressed in the hooded kind of
mantle of black silk not unlike a domino, common in Sicily, was
pouring out her heart, as we could tell by the sobs which shook her
slender figure, through the perforated panel of the confessional, to a
comfortable old priest, who was paying the very slightest heed to her,
and most of the time carrying on with another priest a conversation
which produced more than one smile.
The lady, as she knelt on the broad steps of the confessional, with
her arms flung upwards, like the Magdalene embracing the Cross, and
the graceful line of her straight young back carried along the fall of
the rich mantle to the floor at the foot of the steps, made a most
charming picture. I heard the Admiral tell My Lady that he had quite
lost his heart to the pretty sinner--a term by which I feel sure he
meant no irreverence, for it was not in the nature of the Admiral to
be irreverent to a woman; and, least of all, to a woman in distress.
Presently the fair incognita rose; and casting, as even the recently
confessed will, an eye on the little group of bright uniforms and My
Lady's rich dress, gave such a start that she almost fell. Perhaps it
was faintness; at any rate it displaced her hood, and we recognised
Donna Rusidda.
She made a step towards us, then suddenly turned, and passed swiftly
through the door. My Lady, knowing of Will's attachment, which she
believed to be reciprocated, with the generous warmth characteristic
of her, at once got up, and made signs to Will that we were all going,
and that he should hasten and overtake the Princess.
Will was out in almost one bound over the polished marble floor, but
all trace of her had disappeared. She had slipped into some door
leading to the private apartments.
My Lady's good-nature did not end here; for deeming that Will would
like to stay on the chance of the lady returning, as ladies will who
have a lover loitering, she spoke to the officer who was for the night
in command of the central quadrangle and galleries, from which the
rooms of the Palace open off. He understood the situation perfectly,
and made Will free of the guard-room if he grew tired of pacing.
Will generously invited me to remain with him, to which of course I
assented. But as I did it with a clear understanding that I should
have to betake myself to the guard-room if he was successful, and not
caring to keep a watch in the Palace when I had so many to keep on
board ship, I retired into the guard-room at once. And as the officer
and I had no common language, I accepted the offer, which he made me
by signs, of his cloak, and lying upon the couch pretended to go to
sleep, which I very soon did, but not before I had seen Will peep in
and ascertain if I was signalling patience.
What follows is of course from the Admiral's Journal, and it is
curious how well the entry fits in, in every respect, with our
remembrance of that remarkable night, which carries us exactly to the
point where it begins.
After leaving us, it seems from his Journal that he and My Lady drove
down to the palace Sir William had taken outside the southern end of
the city, near the Flora. Here, as at Naples, My Lady had given the
Admiral the room which commanded the best view of the sea, knowing
how anxiously he scanned it with his glass.
_Extract from the Admiral's Journal, March the --th, 1799._
"I was never more struck with the difference between this place and
Naples than to-night. While I was there I had such a feeling of
elation; I could not open my windows at night without hearing merry
music, or looking out on some illumination, and the twinkling lights
of the moving throng. It was one long hailing of my victory, until
those last few days when we were making preparations to save Their
Majesties. Everything was gay and bright, and there was no taking of
thought but for a happy morrow. And when the moon shone down, as it is
shining to-night, it brought out such a varied scene, so full of life;
while here we have the same moon, only shining even more intensely,
bringing out not a point of life. There is no one driving so far up
the Marina; there is hardly a house near us; there are no fishers in
the Bay; my very ships, as well as the town, are out of sight; and all
the moon shows are the low black arms of the Bay, and the melancholy
mass of Monte Pellegrino looming up like the coffin Ben Hallowell
brought me a few days since, made of the mainmast of the _Orient_.
They even grudge me dear Emma! Bluff Ben gave me the coffin, as if it
were to remind me that I was mortal, and that all happiness was
sinful, and suggest that I sometimes dared to be happy for an hour;
and Troubridge is always urging me to be away from this.
"They don't know, these captains, they don't know what a life I have
been leading, waiting here--the only central point of the
Mediterranean, where it is safe to have Their Majesties--for one
contrary and disheartening report after another to reach me. If I were
Commander-in-chief, with plenty of ships to send where they were
wanted, it would be another thing; but it is only the bad seamanship
of the French which saves them from annihilating us. With a force too
great for us if we had all our fleet together, they let us be
scattered in threes and fours without falling on us. But think of the
anxiety of me, who am responsible!
"And yet they would have it that I am doing nothing, trifling away my
time with Emma, because they knew what hosts Sir William and she were
at Naples, what _fêtes_ and water-_fêtes_ and banquets and balls and
expeditions to see antiquities they provided for us in one unending
stream. They should understand that there is nothing of this here;
that the Hamiltons are themselves but strangers in the place, and that
I am a prisoner to my secretary, while the whole fate of the
Mediterranean hangs on me. I cannot tell how I should get through it
all if it were not for my good Emma, who is always equable, always
cheerful, and has such a soothing touch when I am worn out, body and
mind. Though, if I had had such a wife ... but what if I had?--it
would have been 'the uxorious Admiral Nelson.' With the fault-finding
Troubridge, my _friend_ Troubridge, it would have been, 'What does
Lord Nelson want with his wife out here, when every minute may mean
action?' There is no pleasing these people.
"The dear good Emma is invaluable to me: she and dear Sir William make
a home for me, to which I can creep and hide when I am done to death
with worries. She will deny me to people when they come to tell me the
same tale--it is always the same tale--that the Emperor, Acton, the
Russians, Sir Sidney Smith, the Bey, the Grand Signor, they are all of
them doing nothing or worse than nothing, and Ball is helpless without
even food from Sicily for the Maltese. Why should I have to listen to
them every hour of the day? The Grand Signor is the best of them, and
he is a mule ridden by those crafty Russians, who are playing the deep
game.
"Is it to be wondered at that I sometimes try and escape from all
this? My ships are ready to sail at an hour's notice, and I have
written and written to Mr. Duckworth to get him to quit Minorca, which
leads to nothing, and come to me, where there is a kingdom and the
fate of our fleet hanging in the balance. And yet they chide me
because I try and keep from breaking down by letting Emma nurse my
strength.
"I am miserably ill; we have none of us been well since we came here.
Perhaps the drainage washes back to the Marina, for Palermo has a good
repute. It would do me good if I could see my ship from this window. I
could see it from the de Gregorio Palace, which I have taken and use
for a fleet office; but I am so lonely there--two miles from my good
friends. However, I think I must go there in times like these. I am
miserable without I see my ship.
* * * * *
"I broke off because I felt a hand upon my shoulder, the hand that
sends new blood through my wasted body, which puts new heart into me;
and, as I felt it, the very Bay took on a new spirit. It was no longer
a waste, but had collected within its arms the deep peace of the
Southern night; and the moon shining down on Pellegrino changed it
till it looked like a crown, the crown on whose summit the father of
Hannibal defied the might of Rome those three long years.
"'What, Nelson,' said that clear voice, 'are you too going to leave
me? It is I who shall be lonely, for there is word from Sir William
that he must be at the Palace to tell Acton nothing. The great Queen
will not herself see Acton, or suffer me to see him: he is all for the
King.'
"With that she began to weep very quietly--so quietly that I did not
know till a tear dropped on my hand. I sought to comfort her, and we
stood there I do not know how long.
"'I would to God,' I cried, 'that the French would come upon us: none
of my ships would surrender, and if they destroyed us all with their
three to one, we should so wing them that St. Vincent would catch them
and finish them, and then it would be all over for me, this worry.'
"Her arms wound round me; I could feel her soothing lips; but she said
nothing.
"'The Admiralty do not trust me. They send this coxcomb Smith to show
that they do not think I have done my best in the matter of destroying
those transports at Alexandria. The nation will do nothing for
me--£100,000 means so little for England, and £100,000 worth of
foodstuffs would save a kingdom here. I have to bear the brunt of it
all.'
"Still she said nothing, but drew me closer to her, and let me feel
how her generous heart was beating for my troubles.
"'And now my own captains think I might do more. Troubridge, who is
hipped, does not hesitate to tell me so, as if I or any other man
could do more anywhere. They say you----'
"Then she cried out, 'This moon blinds me: let us move a little
further into the room, and rest our eyes with darkness.'
"And then, I know not how long afterwards, I was overcome by the magic
of soft lips and the fragrance of a woman's throat, and she had given
me her whole heart.
"I was a villain.
* * * * *
"But yet, now that I come to look back on it, with the steady gaze of
matured love, I cannot but think that this villainy is a villainy
invented of man--if it were not ordained for his eternal punishment
when he was driven out of the Garden. It can have been no part of the
original plan that the holy consummation of love should only have
been intended for everyday use, like eating and drinking. Or if it
were, then surely, like eating and drinking, it should have been freed
from all conditions except immoderate use. The one is as natural to
the weak human body as the other. Man cannot do without sleep, when he
has known the need for it. My brave fellows on the _Theseus_ went to
sleep at the capstan-bars in my battle, at the moment that they were
trying to move the ship down to conquer new enemies. They went to
sleep in the act of battle. I suppose if a man were starved of sleep
he would die, as if he were starved of food and drink. And as with a
man who has felt the imperious call of sleep, so it is with a man who
has felt the imperious call of love. To some men it comes late: I have
lived forty years without it, but now that it has come, though I know
I must be a villain, I feel as if love were as much part of my human
nature as sleep, and I feel that life is a great, lovely, glorious
thing, and that life with love is like winning a victory in which you
do not let one ship escape."
* * * * *
More follows, under various dates, in the same strain: in each one the
note of fretfulness and ailing health being in greater prominence. In
the severe attacks of bodily depression to which our beloved Admiral,
in spite of his great spirit, was so peculiarly liable, he could even
doubt Lord St. Vincent, and call Heaven to witness the ingratitude of
Captain Troubridge, though he was the best friend he ever had except
in the matter of regarding this great love of the Admiral's from a
somewhat narrow, uncharitable view. And in this matter some allowance
is to be made for the Captain, who was one of the finest seamen who
ever entered the British Navy, though he had not the imagination which
made our Admiral the greatest of all naval commanders. It was not
having imagination which made him judge the Admiral hardly in this
matter now, though he regarded it much more gently afterwards. To
Captain Troubridge, then, My Lady was an adventuress. He never thought
that the love which ennobled her connection with Mr. Greville might
also ennoble her passion for the Admiral; and he made no allowance for
the rich colours of the imagination with which the Admiral painted My
Lady's companionship and love, till it seemed to him like the sunshine
which makes the difference between the winters of Naples and England.
I, for one, who was so much with our Admiral, would stake my life on
it that My Lady's companionship, her lightly caressing hand on his arm
or shoulder, the kiss of good-fellowship which a daughter would give
to a father, meant much more to him than the passion for which their
lives have been branded. The Admiral's very physique was one which
craved for gentleness rather than passion. That what the world
reprobates did occur between them I take to be the result of two
things: firstly, that his delicate, highly-strung constitution could
not be in constant proximity with the rich vitality of hers without
gaining in vigour; and secondly, that even with the best of men, as
Shakespear said, "The sight of means to do ill deeds oft maketh ill
deeds done."