CHAPTER XVI

TRIUMPH

LONDON and triumph—so dizzy and dazzling that Emma might have almost

repeated her favourite saying that she did not know whether she was on

her head or her heels. Almost, only, for success had given her a

confidence so robust that she foresaw none but glittering vistas. “Alone

I did it!” was her pride. Not to Greville, not to Hamilton, but to her

own conquering personality was the victory due, and looking about her

she saw none to rival her and therefore none to fear. There might be one

or two women as beautiful in the eyes of men whose taste was on a lower

plane than Sir William’s, she thought, but that was beauty only

expressing itself in feature, whereas in herself it overflowed into such

song, such pose, that Gallini, the famous impresario, offered her £2000

a year and two benefits if she would engage with him, whereupon Sir

William gaily retorted that he had engaged her for life. Was it

wonderful that she should see herself laurel-crowned, almost divine?

For life! and Greville had to bear this amazing result of his plot with

what fortitude he could muster. The shock was so great that it was

really not fortitude but the stoicism of good breeding which alone

carried him through. Could he ever forget that first meeting with the

lovers at Sir William’s hotel? Even his frosted heart beat a little

quicker as he climbed the broad shallow stairs. He could not for the

life of him tell what Emma would be at when the door opened. Would she

have changed, grown distant and formidable, less or more beautiful?

Would she triumph vulgarly? (He could imagine that very well.) Would all

the plotting facility which had placed her where she was be turned

mercilessly against his interests henceforward! And would his dear

Hamilton look the fool which in every fibre Greville felt him to be? The

contradictions so confused him that at last he could only say within

himself—“Emma! Good God!”—almost stupefied at the work of his own

hand, and abandon himself to fate.

The door opened. Hamilton was in an armchair reading a letter to her,

she perched on the arm like a child, one hand about his neck. Greville

bowed at the door and advanced with cordial haste.

“My dear Emma, my dear Hamilton!” unpleasantly conscious of a flush

which seemed to pervade his whole being and not his face alone.

She ran forward with the prettiest grace imaginable and caught his

outstretched hand, looking back for Hamilton as he came up behind her.

“Oh, Greville, and do we see you once more? Sir William and me was

longing for this hour. Take his other hand, Sir William, and then it

will be the three of us again.”

She put his hand in his uncle’s, and beamed upon both as gay and

innocent as a lamb in a May meadow. There was no speck of cloud in the

untroubled deeps of the eyes he remembered so well, nothing but

happiness. He took the hand and kissed it.

“What am I to call your Lady Hamilton?” said he, smiling at his uncle.

“Emma—what else? She is not changed in heart, Greville. But look at her

and see what Italy has done!”

“What _you_ have done!” she corrected gravely, and stood with dropped

hands at attention to be viewed.

But Greville’s keen eyes had already drawn their conclusion. “More

beautiful,” they told him, “more womanly; dignity and elegance at her

command to be used like her _cachemire_ when necessary, and laid aside

for the old free-and-easy when she relaxed. Younger looking than even

her four and twenty years—the bud unfolded into perfect beauty, the

blossomed rose.”

Sir William looked much older. The journey had wearied him and the wild

round of gaiety in London teased him. He wanted respite and could not

get it, for every fashionable in the town was wild to see the coming

Ambassadress, and it is possible that even Emma herself might have been

daunted if she could have guessed the stories with which the blank if

not the virgin pages of her early life were adorned. Hamilton knew them.

Despairing friends plucked at the skirts of his garment at the last

moment, with these legends, to save him from a fate impossible for an

ambassador. He sickened of London and longed for Naples and the

sunshine.

“You have seen the King?” Greville asked, when they had talked a while.

“Certainly. He was most gracious. I am given a privy councillorship.

Emma, my love, have you forgot your appointment with Romney?”

She hesitated a second, invisibly, to all but Greville’s keenness, then

stooped and kissed Sir William’s cheek.

“Why, of course! I was so glad to see Greville I had all but forgot poor

Romney. Only two hours, and then when I come back we dress for the Duke

of Queensberry’s reception. The Prince of Wales will be there.”

She challenged Greville, with her bright bold smile, to injure her! Fear

to leave him alone with Sir William? Not she! and so presently tripped

out of the room in her big hat all plumes and the white silk cloak about

her shoulders. Greville attended her to the carriage, and stood

bareheaded, reminiscent of many past hackney coaches on the same errand,

as it bore her away to Romney’s studio. She had forgotten to ask

concerning little Emma, now a fine buxom girl of nine, whose last school

bill lay receipted in his pocket. He turned and went slowly up the

stair, reflecting.

“And what do you think of her?” was the first eager question. It seemed

that Hamilton could think of nothing else. He looked even older now she

was gone; it was as when the sun dies off a landscape.

“Most beautiful,” Greville answered with his carefully regulated

enthusiasm. “Immensely, unspeakably improved.”

“Worth a little sacrifice, eh?”

“Certainly. If worth a great one no one but yourself can tell. I suppose

you had great difficulties with the King about his consent?”

“On the whole, not so bad as I expected. I won’t hide from you, who have

all my confidence, that he was extremely reluctant. I could see the

Queen had primed him. He leaned chiefly on difficulties with the

Neapolitan Court and I could honestly reassure him there. Indeed, I was

able to show him a letter that Marie Caroline wrote me before leaving,

expressing her warm interest and kindness for Emma. It went a long way.

He agreed finally, and offered the privy councillorship.”

Greville reflected.

“A great honour. Did you see the Queen?”

“No. But I have no doubt that Emma will win her way when we are married.

No one can resist her. I may say her life is one triumphal progress.”

“It promised to be long since,” said Greville politely. “Has she

acquired more placidity of temper than we used to remark in her?”

“Undoubtedly. Sometimes I have seen the little struggle, for she is

naturally impetuous, but it is instantly suppressed. She owes much to

your instruction, my dear Greville.”

“You are too partial. Tell me—does she cherish any resentment against

me? Be candid. Women are unreasonable, and though it has crowned her

happiness and yours, still she may be sore on that point—you

understand?”

“Perfectly. But no, not in the least. She speaks of you with just the

calm affection I desire. One of her chief pleasures in looking forward

was to see you. I believe I express the truth in saying she mourned

sincerely over Miss Middleton’s folly and would do all in her power to

aid you in any way.”

Of that Greville believed what he pleased, but when he and Sir William

proceeded arm in arm to the club he was at least assured that for the

present the sword was sheathed.

The truth was, she was in such an Elysium that she thought little of him

and was as ready to be cordial to overflowing as she would have been

with Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh or any other reminder of a past which

might never have existed as far as she was concerned. Incapable of

bearing ill-will to any man, and to few women, she credited all the

world with as happy-go-lucky a forgetfulness as her own. Reserve and

delicacy were qualities unknown to her except as Attitudes, and they

troubled none of her relations with Greville in the new rôle of aunt and

nephew.

But Romney! He had seen in the _Gazette_ that Sir William had arrived,

but knew not the great tidings as yet not publicly announced. How should

he? He had shrunk into his shell more than ever and except for his art

the world went its way and left him stranded on the beach. Would she

send for him? Come? A little shiver like the turn of the sap in spring

in the cold veins of trees seemed to stir feebly about his heart because

she was near.

A little tap at his door. It opened very slowly. The white fold of a

woman’s dress fluttered in like a butterfly on the breeze from the

opened door without. He saw the gleam and swung his chair right about.

The door was pushed back, and, framed in the darkness behind, he saw

her.

Yes, but he could not move. He could not speak. He stared at her,

hollow-eyed. Was it real? So often in dream and waking vision that door

had stirred and she had stood, still, smiling, exactly as she stood now,

living, with glowing lips and cheeks, sweet, sweet, inexpressibly, and

yet had melted away into emptiness and distance as he looked. It would

be that and no more this time also. He looked down with a long sigh on

his knotted empty hands, and dreaded to be cheated into joy.

She could not bear it a moment longer. Her warm heart overflowed, and

quick as a sunbeam she danced along the floor and caught him about the

neck, forcing his face upwards.

“Mr. Romney—oh, Mr. Romney, I’ve come back to you. Are you glad? I’m so

glad I don’t know what to do. Look up, or I’ll run away again!”

He felt the loving living arms about him. In no dream had he heard her

voice—that voice of heart’s music—no dream had kissed his cheek with

rose-warm lips.

“Emma? Emma?”—he said at last, in a thick muffled voice that made its

way through a long-heaped silence; and then the life she brought with

her flowed quicker through his blood and woke him to her sunshine.

“Is it true?” he asked at last, and she, her heart almost overflowing at

her eyes, assured him it was Emma—“the same, same Emma that can never

change to you. No, not if she lives to be a hundred.”

She calmed him after that. She had two hours—two whole golden hours!

And see! They would have their meal together, just the same as in the

old dear days. Was there a loaf in the cupboard; and eggs?

No, not one. Then what did he mean? Was he going to starve? No, wait,

wait! She had her plan.

She caught up her old basket in a dusty corner, itself all dusty and

cobwebbed, but still preserved, and down the stair with her, and off to

the nearest shop she could find; and that was near for she had not

forgotten a step of the way. And presently she returned, with her little

parcels, to find him at the front door staring bewildered lest she

should be flown off to Naples like a witch on a broomstick; and so up

the stairs, and to the little stove where he had his lonely kettle

a-boil and all his rusty, dusty materials for tea; and tucked up her

sleeves and made her buttered toast and fried her sausages and sat him

down to eat with her while she ate also with her hearty young appetite

and talked with a full mouth and a fuller heart of the Neapolitan

triumphs.

That was Emma at her best and loveliest. It is arguable, nor can I

refute it, that let who will possess her, Romney had the most of her

after all. He drew some divine essence from her that the others could

not—no, not even Nelson, though he came nearest. He saw the soul in her

freed from all contradictions and flaws—pure essence, spiritual beauty.

And whether he was wrong or immortally right, God only knows, who made

her so beautiful.

So he listened, elbows propped on the table, and greedy eyes devouring

every play of light and dark across her face—worshipping once more at

the altar of the Divine Lady.

But now she must come near the central truth of her strange, eventful

history—her marriage. And that would wing a dart, she knew full well,

for what have poor painters to do with ambassadresses rising in

apotheosis into rosy clouds of flattery and grandeur?

“Sir William loves me beyond all you could imagine, Mr. Romney”—she

said, delaying a little.

“What else could he do? What else can any of ’em do? Tell me news, Emma.

Tell me he stays in England now he’s here.”

“Alas, no, my dear, dear friend. His duties take him back to Naples.”

“And you with him?”

“And I with him. As his wife.”

She sat half frightened, half triumphant, with the man looking at her

open-mouthed, fixed. She answered the beseeching in his face.

“Yes, it’s true. His wife.”

“But not yet—not yet?”

“In a few days. But then we stop here awhile. Oh, Mr. Romney, you shall

paint me on my wedding day.”

“Your wedding day. No. He’ll want you with him.”

“Then he shan’t have me; but he’s good, he’ll understand. Would I not be

with my friend that happy day? Dear sir, you shall paint the

Ambassadress, and it shall be—oh, better than Circe, than Cassandra,

than them all!”

She caught him up in her own joy and whirled him away, leaving not a

moment for thought or grief. All centred on the picture. And so it

remains—immortal, for he threw his great heart, his great brain into

it, and the colours were mingled with his life-blood in that most noble

portrait. She sits, little hands with the new wedding ring clasped upon

the arm of her chair. Some one has disturbed her meditation—her

Excellency the Ambassadress is needed; she turns her face, the lovely

oval chin and curved lips upon the happy beholder. The eyes under the

long arched brows are full of gentle reserves and soft dignity. Not any

Circe nor Cassandra now, but Emma Hamilton, herself at last. We may

believe that Hamilton loved that picture, for it represented her as all

he wished and believed her—worthy indeed of the great gifts he had

given.

But the world went on its way, and from that day onward the fribbles of

fashion crowded about her. She swept them away also in the strong

current of her marvellous vitality. Mr. Horace Walpole wrote wittily

enough that the Nymph of the Attitudes had conquered—“Sir William

Hamilton’s pantomime mistress, who acts all the antique statues in an

Indian shawl.” So he said, burning to see the sight like the rest of

them. He favoured the Duke of Queensberry’s reception that night at

Richmond with a chosen few that he might see her with Sir William

glowing with pride to display his conquering Beauty. Let us hear the

Arbiter of Fashion and of Taste.

“On Saturday evening I was at the Duke of Queensberry’s (at

Richmond _s’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 made _Madame l’Envoyeé à Naples_,

the Neapolitan Queen having promised to receive her in that

quality. _Here_ she 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.”

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. _She_ would 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 XVII

NELSON

1793

THE terror 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.”

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 travelling

_incognita_, 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 such _faux 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 the _Agamemnon_—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 the _Agamemnon_.

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 of _virtu_

displayed 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 the _Agamemnon_. 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 XVIII

THE NEAPOLITAN COURT

CAPTAIN HORATIO NELSON was 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 the _Agamemnon_ to 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

the _Agamemnon_ in my name. The best in the market. And let it be done

_now_.”

“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 the _Agamemnon_ was 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 of _objets d’art_ than 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 the

_only_ way. 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.

The _Agamemnon_ lay 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 the _Agamemnon_

for 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 word

_troops_. 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 with

_dolci_—“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 the

_Ambassador_.”

“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 the _Agamemnon_ had

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.

_Agamemnon_ to 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 the _Agamemnon_, 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.

CHAPTER XIX

DIPLOMACY

A TROUBLOUS year, but it brought a new part to Emma. Nelson had carried

back to Lord Hood an account of the excellent dispositions of the

Ambassadress toward the Fleet; the junior officers were full of her

praises also. They had a friend at court in the truest sense of the

word, and that grim Fleet, tossing about the Mediterranean in storm and

sunshine, harassing the French in their every plan, seldom seeing land

save as a danger, had need of many things; the officers were certain now

that what she could do in their favour she would.

Nelson, who wrote often and warmly to the Hamiltons, though never nearer

to them than Leghorn, had passed the knowledge of her warm heart and

indefatigable spirit on to Sir John Jervis, now his commander in chief,

and urged him to write to the English Embassy for all he needed for his

bluejackets.

They were assailing Corsica now—that stronghold of French power in the

Mediterranean—and their needs, in the cruel distance from England, were

insistent. It seemed absurd to suppose a woman could help them, yet

Nelson, his right hand, thought it worth the trial, and Sir John Jervis

wrote, full of apologies and suppressed eagerness, direct to the lady

herself. Letters to the Ambassador were certainly supervised in the

King’s interest. To her they would be empty compliment and pass safely

enough. It may give some notion of their straits if we glimpse into

Nelson’s letter to my Lord Hood, a little before.

“We are really without firing, wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost

without water. Not a rope, canvas, nail or twine in the ship. The ship

is so light she cannot hold her side to the wind. We are certainly in a

bad plight at present.”

And yet with all these shortcomings, the stronghold of Corsica, Bastia,

must be attacked—the more desperately needful because Toulon was again

in French hands through the machinations of a little Corsican artillery

officer to be known in future as Buonaparte. Strange that two such stars

as Nelson and Buonaparte should rush so swiftly to the same zenith in

the same years.

Often enough Nelson wished, pacing the quarterdeck in those days, that

he could see, instead of the highlands of Corsica, Uovo and Nuovo

rounding softly from blue seas, and hear the ringing cordial welcome of

the Lady of the Embassy.

“She’s more man than any of them,” he brooded. “I warrant we should not

lack for stores if _she_ had her word in it!”

He remembered the promptitude that had supplied the troops for Toulon.

She seemed a fair guardian spirit, but alas, too far away. He would have

liked her sympathy also in all his new honours, bought by the loss of an

eye—yet not too dearly.

Still, he wrote; Sir John Jervis wrote; and she responded eagerly. Ships

came tossing down to Corsica, safeguarded by English frigates, loaded

gunwale deep with necessities. She bought with extraordinary acumen. One

would say she had a seaman’s instinct. They had but to hint and it was

done. Amazing part for Emma of Edgware Row! She spent her own money when

the Queen’s ran short. The two women had a Neapolitan agent secret as

death, who bought for them, chartered the little coasting vessels, and

while the two played cards and laughed at the ceremonious Courts and the

idle Neapolitan women, sent their bounty Corsica-way and made his own

comfortable commission. It was exceedingly well managed.

As for Nelson, beef and pork, rope and flour, were more to him than

diamonds to a court beauty, and in his soul he loved her with a generous

comrade-love for the help she gave them. Never a light story of her in

the Fleet now, if he were present.

“That woman,” he would cry, his face flashing with energy, “is an honour

to the name of Englishwoman. She has the Fleet on her heart night and

day, and the wit of a man to carry out the needful. Here’s a health to

the Patroness of the Fleet!”

And they would drink it standing, in the wine of the country she sent

them and with the “Hip, hip, hurra!” Nelson had taught her at Naples.

Her help, any help, was urgent, for that year darkened down from the

high hopes of Toulon into grave alarms. The French developed a force

more terrible than any discovery of gun or bomb—a man, Napoleon, with

all his mighty brain turned upon the destruction of England, and all his

devastating energy centred on the means to be adopted—and excepting

Nelson, it may well be that there was no Englishman of the day who

realized that the Mediterranean was the keystone of the bridge over

which he must pass either to world dominion or to ruin.

For Emma, it possessed her. Forgotten were all the Attitudes, the

gaieties, the little schemes for pomp and pleasure. She lived but for

news of the Fleet; a letter to Sir William from Nelson, or a less

guarded one to herself, since that was the safer channel, made up her

day’s excitement, and her interviews with the Queen her daily bread.

Excitement had always been her native atmosphere. It wearied and aged

Sir William; she throve luxuriant. As to the Queen, she could not do

without her. Emma was her “chère amie,” “Emma carissima,” and her warmth

was repaid in kind.

“My charming Queen!” she wrote to Greville. “Everything one can wish,

the best mother, wife, and friend in the world. I live constantly with

her and have done so intimately for two years, and if you hear any lyes

about her, contradict them, and if you should see a cursed book written

by a vile French dog with her character in it, don’t believe one word.

No person can be as charming as the Queen. If I was her daughter she

could not be kinder to me and I love her as my own soul.”

That was Emma all over—the passionate partisanship which saw nothing

but divinity in a friend, nothing but devilry in a foe. And if with all

this, there mingled a little feudal romance in favour of the daughter,

mother and wife of sovereigns, can the child of the people, herself all

romance, be blamed very severely?

Sir William overflowed with these praises in private and, smiling a

little at certain reminiscences of his own, would beseech Emma to

believe the Queen a little lower than the angels, and besought in vain,

and then reflecting philosophically that this was at all events a

driving force which spared him much trouble and probably would do more

good than harm, betook himself to his vases and gems once more. Emma

could have trounced him sometimes but for her affection. His coolness

almost drove her mad. But she nursed him tenderly through an anxious

illness, and that more than once.

And things grew steadily worse. Napoleon was proving himself statesman

as well as warrior, and a terrible fear gained ground that the

mean-minded King of Spain would finally throw in his lot with the French

Jacobins.

He had excuse for all about him the coalition of kings was breaking up

and dissolving into the republics of a day. Austria trembled, Prussia

fell off; even the steadfast England wavered.

There was a rumour of orders to evacuate the Mediterranean which caused

the Queen and Emma to look at each other in silent despair. If _that_

order were fulfilled, alas for the Two Sicilies! The Little Englanders

of the day were slowly dominating the home situation and Nelson, chafing

in the Mediterranean, wrote:

“Till this minute it has been usual for the allies of England to fall

from her, but till now she never was known to desert her friends whilst

she had the power of supporting them.”

And Buonaparte stormed Italy. Northern Italy lay at his feet, conquered,

bound, plundered of her ancient glories of statues, pictures, the jewels

that most adorned her, and he returned to the Directory in France the

most famous general of modern times. They talked of Cæsar, Hannibal,

cast in the shade for ever. And so the years went by.

But Spain? Spain was the cruellest anxiety for England—Spain with her

harbours, her throne at the Gut of the Mediterranean, her fleet. If she

could but know the true intentions of Spain! But how? There the English

Cabinet was baffled.

The Queen of the Two Sicilies and Emma had met for an afternoon’s

singing. Her Majesty was fond to passion of music, and the

Ambassadress’s singing was not “reasonable good” for a great lady, but

famous throughout Europe. Who could deny a harassed queen her daily

refreshment of sweet song, with talk and refreshments to follow?

Princess Belmonte, wife of the Neapolitan Ambassador to the Court of

Spain, was with them that day, and full of charming chatter of the

Spanish Court, His Neapolitan Majesty’s gracious brother, the King; and

so forth; and the Queen, Emma seconding, led her out beyond the caution

of an ambassadress in case some grains of information could be picked

up.

But the lady, though open as a _costume de bal_, was also guarded with

steel and buckram beneath. She favoured them with such gossip as please

ladies, no more, and when she spoke to a lady in waiting at the window,

the Queen’s burning eye caught Emma’s.

“Would you not sing for us, chère Miladi? The Princess has not heard you

of late. (She has brought a letter for the King!) I beseech you to

favour us. (My spies know of a cipher letter.) If I might choose it

should be the ‘Guardami.’”

“Madam, can I refuse Your Majesty anything? I am scarcely in voice

to-day. I have been sitting up all night with my husband, who is

extremely unwell. (Will the King show it to Acton?) but if it please

you! Would you not prefer the ‘Stella mia’?”

“Oh, madam, what you please. (Certainly he will not. Only the Foreign

Minister will know.) Then may I beg it now?”

Emma sent for her music, so tremulous that she doubted if she could sing

at all. If this was as the Queen suspected, Spain had succumbed to the

successes of Napoleon and—what would Nelson, what would all her friends

of the Fleet say? She felt it in her to take this laughing young woman

by the throat and drag the paper from her bosom. Instead of which the

accompanist opened the music, and she sang with her thoughts far

otherwhere, but with more brilliancy than usual if with less feeling.

Compliments, smiles, from the Princess Belmonte, and the other ladies;

gracious approval from the Queen; Emma’s sweeping obeisance at the door.

She trails down the long corridor, and enters her carriage, marvelling

what will be the next turn of this strange wheel.

A ragged urchin with impish smile and the long agate eyes of the south

offers a bouquet at the window.

“Buy it, Excellency. Buy it, O loveliest. Flowers, flowers, plucked this

morning with the dew on them. O Lady, I have eaten nothing to-day. For

the pity of the Virgin and Saint Anna, buy, I beseech you.”

Emma’s heart was never inaccessible to pity and she had long outsoared

the Greville limit of a farthing. Ambassadresses must give generously.

She pushed a large silver coin into the olive paw, and let the flowers

fall carelessly on her lap.

The Princess, the letter—the Queen would not have said that without

knowing! That, too, was why she had not been asked to delay after the

others. The Queen would risk no suspicion of plotting at this point.

Clear as noonday, but then, how could they meet? She moved impatiently,

and the bouquet rolled from her lap to the floor and a little grimy

paper folded like a quill fell out of it.

English—then Acton was at the back of this also! She read eagerly.

“It is here, but I know not how to obtain it. Suggest.”

That was all, but Emma’s quick wits raced swift as thought. She was in

the Queen’s skin. What would she herself do provided Sir William had a

secret she wished to master? If the King were so great a fool as to plot

behind the Queen’s and Acton’s backs and ruin his country in so doing,

what terms could be kept with him? She had her plan clear as noonday in

five minutes. If the Queen had her courage it was done. But had she?

She put her head out of the window and ordered her carriage to return to

the Palace, and unfastening her glove, took off a small diamond ring,

and clasped it in a shut hand with the flowers. It was not long before

she was curtseying at the door of the Royal salon again, all smiles and

apologies.

“Oh, madam, my carelessness! Will Your Majesty pardon? I have dropped a

little ring, not of much value, but to me invaluable as His Excellency’s

gift. Have I your permission to search?”

The Queen’s eye had caught the flowers. She was all graciousness. She

moved her Royal skirts aside, the other ladies hovered about the floor

looking for the sparkle under chairs, in the corner, Emma hunting with

the best of them.

Triumph! A little cry! She held it up, laughing. “Under the pedal of the

forte-piano. Why hadn’t I the sense to look there at first? Ladies, with

Her Majesty’s permission, I must tell you the story of that ring.”

Permission charmingly given, all the ladies a-tiptoe to hear, the

Princess Belmonte fanning herself prettily behind the Queen’s chair.

“Your Majesty, His Excellency had promised me a ring if I studied my

solfeggi as I ought. I laboured for hours daily. The ring was bought—I

knew that—but I was not to see it until my birthday. And then a

terrible thing happened. In arranging the flowers I knocked down his

famous Pompeian figurino and broke it!”

Dramatic pause. Cries of sympathy and horror from the ladies. Her

Majesty laughing at Emma’s tragic face.

“My good husband was furious. My birthday should not be kept. I should

have no ring. Was it fair, Your Majesty, Ladies? I decided it was not.”

“No, not fair!” they chorused. “A bargain is a bargain!”

“So I thought. And the night before my birthday, while my husband slept

I turned out his pockets! Ladies, behold a brigand! I found the case. I

put on the ring, and in the morning I wished myself many happy returns

in his presence and flourished the ring in his face!”

Loud applause. Cries of “Were you forgiven?”

“Ladies, need you ask? What husband does not forgive his wife if she

plays her game rightly? Next day he asked _my_ forgiveness. But the ring

is useful as a reminder.”

She asked a thousand pardons of Her Majesty and made her gay curtsey and

went off again, and kneeling close, with her mouth at his ear, told the

story, trembling, to Sir William. He approved warmly.

“Splendid—done as it was on the spur of the moment! She will get that

paper to-night if it exists. Oh, Emma, I am but a burden on you, ill and

in pain as I am, and this may be vital.”

“I can manage it,” she said, and fell into deepest thought.

It was next evening towards dusk that a boy with a basket of flowers

approached her again, leaning against the balustrade of the garden and

humming a song of the people to himself in a sweet low murmur.

“Flowers, Excellenza, flowers. For the pity of God!” She bought at once.

That was no novelty. The Neapolitans knew that the Lady of the Embassy

rejected no appeal for mercy. She flew to her own room. A paper in

cipher, with no covering letter. A great glow overspread her face. Her

knees knocked together, so that she could scarcely make her way to

Hamilton’s room, where he sat, his foot swathed up against the gout;

old, ill, querulous.

But all that dropped aside as he saw the cipher. He said, “This may be

of the very first importance. We must do it alone.”

She touched the bell quietly, trembling with eagerness, and listened

while he gave his order for the Embassy ciphers to Trevylyan, the young

secretary chosen for him by the Hamilton interest. Not even he must see

the result. Patiently they sat up half the night decoding the brief

letter, for brief it mercifully was. Spain was definitely to leave the

Alliance and cast in her lot with France. In future the French and

Spanish fleets would sail together.

It was reciphered into the English cipher, and Emma put the original in

her bosom. By heaven’s own luck the courier was, in any case, to start

that night with despatches, and it was nothing to include this among

them.

Sir William signed it; she sealed and despatched it. He looked her in

the face when it was done.

“Emma, my love, you have deserved well of your country. The party at

home for evacuating the Mediterranean will look small enough when this

is known. Now set your bright wits to work to restore the original to

the Queen. I will write myself to King George.”

He did so with the proud realization that Emma, could all the story be

told, had become a trustworthy and successful diplomatic agent. It could

not be told in fulness, for the Queen’s name must be hidden. But from

his heart he admired Emma’s coolness and address. She visited the Palace

next day with drawings by Gavin Hamilton of the Villa Favourita, the

Queen’s favourite summer villa, and it was easy in the give and take of

papers to pass the cipher. The King never knew he had been robbed, but

the English Cabinet made use of its knowledge.

There was no more talk of evacuating the Mediterranean, and the bond

between the two women was strong as steel. The whole episode advanced

Sir William at home. He grew daily in importance.

Her life became one of passionate interest. She corresponded not

infrequently with Nelson, for that again might pass as friendship. The

secrets for co-operation of the French and Spanish fleets filtered

amazingly to England, and back to the English Admirals, and none could

lay their finger on the source. King Ferdinand could scarcely suspect

the Queen for he kept her in utter ignorance. And Emma—Emma was the

soul of the whole conspiracy, the invaluable servant of England, of her

Queen, and her husband.

Well might she say, “My position in this Court is now very

extraordinary”—there was little vanity in that statement. My Lady

Hamilton was a prima donna in earnest. And her stage was Europe.

And the years darkened slowly down, as the rising comet of Napoleon

swept into the established systems, dragging half the heavens in his

train.

The English Fleet, most absolutely for the whole world, for its last

hope of freedom, all, all depended on those silent admirals, those

wearied captains at watch in the Mediterranean. Since the visit of the

_Agamemnon_ Emma had never seen Nelson, yet she had not forgotten him,

nor the sense of something dynamic, unforeseeable, with which he had

inspired her. He was hawking all over the Mediterranean since Corsica

was taken. He had lost an eye. He had lost an arm. He was Sir Horatio

now. Items reached her, but little more. And the thought haunted her

that her work was what he would applaud if he could know it. She was

Patroness of the Navy to some purpose, if she could only boast herself

as she dared not.

The Two Sicilies were forced to a hateful compact with France. They

dared not break it; if they did, the kingdom, trembling to a republic

under French domination, must fall.

Oh, for an English Fleet! That was the prayer of Emma and of Marie

Caroline day by day. They appealed to Sir John Jervis, now Lord St.

Vincent, commanding in the Mediterranean, for help, help, at any cost.

And then a great, a terrible portent broke upon the world, holding its

breath in terror. Napoleon, not yet thirty years old, who had been

making great and secret preparations, had launched a mighty expedition

on Egypt, resolving to catch England by the throat where she might be

easiest strangled and shaken from her domination in India. Nelson knew,

the world knew, of preparations at Toulon, but not a soul where the blow

would fall until the fox had slipped cover and it was too late. He was

doubling down the Mediterranean eastward, confusing the scent by every

means in his power. And Nelson was pursuing him, hampered by

misinformation, by the lack of frigates, scouts of the Fleet, but

steadfastly pursuing.

And on that pursuit the fate of Europe hung. It is easy even now to

picture the fever of hope and fear in Naples and in Sir William’s and

Emma’s hearts. They knew, none better, that the British Fleet would need

the sinews of war, food and water. Ships, like armies, fight on their

bellies. But yet the compact with the French hindered the necessary aid

from the Sicilian King. Further, it forbade the Sicilian kingdom to

receive at any time more than four frigates at once into any of the

King’s harbours.

Napoleon was taking no risks. He had burned the prairie behind him.

True, Nelson had his secret instructions to seize food and water by

force of arms if no better could be, but that was doubtful, was an

insult to the Sicilian King, and therefore playing into Napoleon’s

hands, and must be his last and dangerous resort.

But what was to be done? Food and water refused, Gibraltar, far off

Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean, was Nelson’s nearest port

of help, and with that throwing back on his trail Egypt lay free before

Napoleon.

Nelson had been in frequent correspondence with the Hamiltons though he

had never seen them since the _Agamemnon_ up-anchored in the Bay of

Naples. His mind reverted often to his friend Emma; for friend every

officer in that ship had felt her to be, and Nelson most of all. But

still more it hovered about her influence with the Queen. That Ferdinand

in his purblind folly had been playing fast and loose with France and

Spain, all knew. But the Queen? She at all events had the wit to defend

her dynasty by truth to England. Or so he believed. Could she be

trusted?

He wrote to Emma, interweaving his stern meaning with compliments,

allusions to the charming Queen and so forth, and waited for her answer

eagerly. She would understand—trust her for knowing what her country

needed!

Her answer returned. The Queen was staunch. Her own influence with her

had grown and strengthened. What could she do to help? Let him but be

frank and he would find her with Sir William at his back. He kissed that

letter, not for love’s sake, not a breath of it, unless the true flash

from comrade to comrade be called love—as indeed it should until we

find as many words as the Greeks for that most under-labelled passion.

From that moment his mind was steadfastly made up for Naples, though to

no one but his commander in chief did he break his secret.

It was a lovely day in June, the water calm as a blue pearl, when

Hamilton, in the room of the mirrors with Emma writing to his dictation

at his elbow, sighted fore-running ships coming up from the westward to

Ischia and so on to Capri. He started up. The pen fell from her hand and

they stood together at the window fixed in suspense.

“Good God!” said she at last. “What will the King say? He leans on

Austria now that Spain has broken under him. This is St. Vincent’s

doing—but sure he knows the ships are forbid to enter.”

For, recognized almost publicly now as the Patroness of the Fleet,

Admiral Lord St. Vincent had written to her that much depended on her

communications with him. She warmed even the cool St. Vincent with her

fire, as she did all who came near her.

“The picture you draw of the lovely Queen of Naples and the Royal Family

would rouse the indignation of the most unfeeling. I am bound by my oath

of chivalry to protect all who are persecuted and distressed.”

Sir William had laughed a little over that letter. It would have been

long indeed before St. Vincent would have unbent to write it to him.

Well, if women imported the element of romance into diplomacy, and it

stirred men into action, so much the better. He was proud of his Emma.

“It’s St. Vincent’s doing!” she repeated, leaning on Hamilton’s arm.

“Now who will be in command? I wish it might be Nelson.”

“My love,” replied Sir William sententiously, “such is your luck that I

believe it will be whoever you have set your heart on. And, if it is

not, that a frigate despatched by you to St. Vincent will bring your

choice instantly. See—only two vessels are making into the bay. The

bulk of the fleet is evidently to lie off Capri. Don’t I see boats

lowering? Come down.”

They waited below and before an hour was over two post captains, brushed

up and strictly on service, demanded a conference with the

Ambassador—Captains Troubridge and Hardy, right-hand men of Admiral

Nelson’s as the Embassy pair knew full well.

“Sir Horatio in command?” was Hamilton’s first question.

“Certainly.” Lord Hood had detached him to ask food and water for his

own squadron in chase of the French. That was their errand. The Admiral

would not land, for time pressed. What could be done with the Royalties?

Emma was not present ostensibly. She did not know these men. But, by Sir

William’s desire, she was stationed in the deep alcove where she could

hear every word. It might well be vital she should.

The old difficulty, he told them. The King opposed, dallying weakly with

Austria’s uncertain aid and hoping to keep well with France. The Queen,

all British in sympathy, eager to help, and alas! the Fleet suspended

between these two irreconcilables.

“What use to ask the King?” said Hamilton. “He will shift, temporise,

play to gain time. Gentlemen, I regret to say it, but I have tried every

avenue already to break that most infamous pact forbidding our ships to

enter Sicilian ports freely. There is unfortunately a French busybody

here, a regicide named Garat, a born spy, and everything that takes

place is magnified out of all knowledge and packed off straight to

France. Still, I can only suggest application to the King.”

An anxious wrinkle formed itself on Troubridge’s forehead: “But that

will mean endless delay and the French may be anywhere. They will spin

it out and time is diamonds. No other hope?”

“None, sir, I regret to say. You must have a ministerial order for food

and water.”

“Again that means delay,” said Hardy at Troubridge’s shoulder, shifting

nervously from one foot to the other. His face showed that suspense

galled him cruelly. “Not only so, your Excellency, but we need frigates

like water in the desert. We are frigate-starved. We meant to ask for

the Sicilian frigates.”

“They’ll never do that,” Sir William said decidedly. “Put it out of your

head, my good sir. It would be an act of war on France. Leave it to me,

and I’ll do what I can to get you a Royal order for victualling and

water.”

The captains stood there dogged and disconsolate. Bad news to take back

to Nelson and he fuming and raging as it was. Emma marked all from her

retirement. Sir William left the room to make himself ready and still

the two men waited there, not exchanging a word, evidently on

tenter-hooks.

Presently back came the Ambassador, and away they went. She could hear

the carriage rolling down the street. She slipped from her hiding place

and stood a minute to think, then flew upstairs, light as the Emma of Up

Park, and into the stately plumed hat and long silk cloak, and ordered

her own carriage. The Queen should know the rights of this business. It

was two o’clock when the men got back from the audience and Troubridge

carried a paper in his hand and a frowning dissatisfied face above it. A

ministerial order written under the King’s eye, hedged with conditions,

barbed with restrictions, to the governors of the Sicilian ports,

permitting the wounded to be taken ashore, and victualling and water to

be accorded under certain circumstances, in case of need.

“And I’m a Dutchman,” said Hamilton, flinging himself exhausted into a

chair, “if you get anything out of that damned order. For why? Isn’t it

obvious it can be twisted any way, and, if convenient, the King can send

a hint to throw every damned difficulty in your way?”

Troubridge also swore quietly as he sat and looked at the paper. It was

better than nothing and that was all. A diplomatic shift to fob them off

and please the French. Indeed, it might prove worse than nothing and a

mere loss of time. The two sat silent, thinking dangerous thoughts. If

it came to forcing the Sicilian King, as it very well might, why,

then—neither of them cared to consider the consequences.

And as they sat, her Excellency entered, still plumed and cloaked, pale

with some feeling she did not disclose, but greeting them warmly and

kindly.

“Sir William, I would give much to see our old friend the Admiral before

he puts to sea. Would there be any objection on the part of these

officers if we ordered our own yacht and went back with them to Capua?”

Her eye warned him; he was cordial at once. “Why, certainly, it would be

a pleasure to see Sir Horatio and I might well be able to give him some

hints that would be useful with the governors whom I know. Would a lady

be in the way, Captain Troubridge? And how is the wind?”

“Fair.” No difficulty about that, but every moment was precious. Could

her Excellency hasten?

“I am ready now,” said Emma. “Let us go.”

She spoke scarcely a word while the swift yacht cut the water to Capri

but sat, wrapped, as it were, in her own thoughts. The two captains had

so much to discuss with Sir William that they were well content that it

should be so. It was no time for small talk with even the most charming

of women. What Nelson would say to bringing her aboard they could not

tell. Sir William must answer for that.

It was dusk when they boarded the _Vanguard_, her riding light lit, and

her huge bulk dim and mysterious in the twilight. Blue Peter already

flying, the yacht had, of course, been sighted and Nelson was at the

gangway, eager to see the Ambassador, who might have news of the first

consequence, and unconscious of the slight figure that crouched abaft.

He started back in surprise when he saw her. Only the rope ladder for

the men was available but he had a chair rigged up instantly and had her

hoisted on deck. She stood there silent for a minute and motioned to her

husband.

“I have a word for you, Admiral,” he said easily, “and her Excellency

wished to bid you Godspeed on your errand. Can we be private?”

Without a word, Nelson led the way to his cabin. His mind was so pressed

with anxieties that his only thought was of the result of Troubridge’s

errand ashore.

“Have they got the order?” he asked.

“After a fashion, yes. But I fear not one that will serve your purpose,

sir,” said Hamilton. “You know the King of old, and this time he

shelters himself behind his Minister. We must hope for the best, unless

indeed—”

He looked at Emma. His hope was that the Queen might have sent some

offer to deal with the King. Her silence promised, not fulfilment, but

possibility.

“Sir Horatio, I rejoice to see you,” said the soft fluty notes he

remembered so well. “And how is Josiah?”

He made some hurried answer, and looked at Sir William. What were they

there for?

“I want you to look at this paper,” she said, her voice shaking. “’Tis

known to my husband, if not to you, that the Queen, in virtue of having

brought an heir to the throne, has the right to a seat on the Council

and a voice in all decisions. I urged Her Majesty but now to use her

power. She feared to do so for fear of complications, not only with the

King, but with the French. I urged her on my knees and with tears for

the sake of all her hopes, her kingdom, her children—” Her voice broke

with excitement and the throbbing of her heart. Nelson’s face fixed on

her, though as yet he could not comprehend. He was white as death. If he

must return to Gibraltar for victualling, good-bye to the French and all

his hopes. His thin hand shook on the table. Sir William took a paper

from her hand and read it to himself, while the two looked at each other

in silence.

“Sir,” he said, extending it, “I offer you from my Lady Hamilton a Royal

order for provisioning and watering the Fleet where you will.” He spoke

with the rigid composure of his caste and rank. Emma, near breaking

down, all sparkling, glowing, trembling at last, stared at Nelson. He

mastered himself by an effort that for a minute seemed beyond him and

took the paper and read it. Then laid it on the table and stood as if

before his King.

“Madam,” he said with solemnity, “you have saved your country. God send

the Fleet may be worthy of your courage and wisdom.”

She sank into the chair behind her and covered her face with her hands,

while he went to the door and gave the order to make sail instantly.

CHAPTER XX

THE NILE

AS Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson sailed for Syracuse, many thoughts kept

him company in striding up and down his quarterdeck. He loved his wife

with a calm affection which recognized to the full her tender claim upon

him, her duty, devotion and wifely submission. To him, his Fanny

appeared the ideal wife. One classified women only as good and bad. The

first were those who were obedient to all household duties and created

the soft and infinitely restful home atmosphere to which a wearied man

returned from his labours for rest and refreshment infinitely soothing

after the harsh contact with men and affairs. Here one could unburden

one’s soul of likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, and be certain of a

kind inevitable echo to all. What he thought, his Fanny would think. Her

small pleasures and angers would follow his as certainly as little pet

dogs running at his heels. She had never stood in the way of any of his

duties though undoubtedly she felt the long separations. She wept a few

gentle tears on parting and applied herself wholly to the care of the

person he loved best in the world next to herself, his old father. Those

two represented home to him and often in the mirages of the tossing

spray he beheld that little room in the Norfolk parsonage, and his

father’s big winged chair drawn up beside the fire, and Fanny reading

the last long letter to him in her mild monotone, and the serene pride

of the two in his achievements. Poor little Fanny, she had had many

anxieties with her husband and son in the same danger, and yet never

said a word to hinder him—no, not one. Stop!—when he had got his flag

and the Cross of the Bath after the glorious battle of St. Vincent she

had tenderly implored him henceforward to leave boarding to captains.

Dear little Fanny!—he smiled over that bit of pride in the new

Admiral’s lady: knew too how much it summed up of past suffering in the

glorious escapades (for so common sense must class them) of Teneriffe

and St. Vincent. He had had the glory; she the suffering.

Pious, too, after his own manner of decent Church of England piety: God

and the King!—the King not so very far behind. There too he could open

his inmost heart to her and be sure of her prayers commingled with his

own. Naturally there were professional matters one could not tell even

the most valuable wife. Not for women the anxieties and responsibilities

of such a career as his. Their timidity could not support it. In that

department a woman had neither help nor counsel to offer—nothing but

her prayers, and her joy when all was safely accomplished. But that was

much—much! It filled his soul with calm security and gratitude. For

there were the bad women. He knew very well the type of captain’s wife

who spent his hard-won prize money on her own flaunting vanity, and

coquetted with other men while he upheld the honour of England on

distant seas. No, thank God, his Fanny was none of those tawdry jilts.

She was a true good woman—“All that is valuable in a wife”—so he

assured her and others.

Yet nothing can be perfect. The other captains, when they went home

rejoicing on leave, were surrounded by flocks of apple-cheeked

youngsters, something to fight for, to leave your honours to when a

hammock with round shot at head and heels was the last bed for a sailor.

But he did not trouble her with that want though it was a dull empty

ache when he looked at his medals, just because he knew how deeply it

rankled in her own heart. There was Josiah, and to him she was a devoted

mother, but Josiah meant little enough to the Admiral though he did his

best for him afloat and ashore, and she felt it—she felt it, poor girl!

No casual mistress, but a wife was Fanny. It would have seemed almost

indecent, even had it been possible, to surround her with worship and

homage, and draw a passionate inspiration from her kind frank

countenance. She could never understand romance. And yet Nelson was not

without his starry lady whose glove he wore on his helmet, whose beauty

he protested with sword and word in all companies, for whose least

favour he would have died a thousand deaths. Such a man must kneel on

his heart’s knees to some fair figure who shall crown him as he crowns

her his Inspiration and All. And his was Glory, summed up in the name of

England. So ride the knights of the Holy Ghost, the men whose eyes

dazzle on a beauty unseen, yet most intimately known to them, each

perceiving for himself that figure flitting ever on before with white

feet that touch not the earth pollute, and hands that beckon to the goal

that cannot be uttered: whose they are to serve eternally.

And now in his very worship came the turning point of Nelson’s life, for

woe be to the man who attempts to embrace her not by raising of the

womanhood into God, but sinking of the Godhead into woman.

His physical and spiritual nerves were shocked, as it were, into

profound amaze by the wonder of this woman, this Emma. For, where his

Fanny stood earthbound she soared glorious. Fanny had never hindered

him, but this one helped him as no other had ever done. Wordless, she

understood. What mattered her beauty? Had she been the sorriest wench

that ever smutted her face in a kitchen, and yet had done what she did,

he could have worshipped at her feet—as a true acolyte of his goddess

Glory. She knew. With his own fierce energy, she flung herself into the

fight: she won the troops for Toulon, the chance of victory for his

fleet. That white soft hand had dealt out ruin to Napoleon, and he,

Nelson himself, was but her sword.

Exaggerated? No doubt, but men of his type exaggerate gloriously, and in

that is their strength. As he sailed down the Mediterranean to Syracuse,

armed with her order, far beyond reach of the foolish King’s forbidding,

her face fled before him encircled with rays that mingled her with

England and made them one. He had not a sexual thought concerning her.

So much a part of his inward aspiration had she become that sometimes he

almost doubted her real, but rather a part of the dreams of moonlight

nights and long calms on swaying seas.

But one thing grew in his soul to a most fiery purpose. She had not

failed him. He would return her full measure pressed down and running

over. To his simple and pious soul she became the Will of God—His

justice upon the evil deeds of France—and possibility of failure passed

as utterly from his mind as though the deed were done already, and the

Frenchmen scattered with their ruined dream of power, mere wreckage of

the English seas. But for all that it was a bitter and wearing chase,

and though he dreamed of her the suspense left cruel marks.

For want of English frigates, the scouts of the Fleet, the French ships

had slipped past and down the Mediterranean as fast as wind could carry

them. Nelson’s necessities had given them the heels of him and where to

find them he could not tell. Later he wrote to Hamilton: “Having gone a

round of six hundred leagues at this season of the year, here am I, as

ignorant of the situation of the enemy as I was twenty-seven days ago.”

And again, “If I were now to die, the word _frigates_ would be found

written on my heart.” Maddening, if he had not been up-borne by the

inner certitude that England and Emma gave him for an inward peace in

the midst of turmoil.

He made for Syracuse for the food and water he owed to her—her only.

And thence he wrote to her and to her husband, exulting. Guarded, for

neither the Queen nor Emma must appear; but yet exultant.

“My dear friends, thanks to your exertions we have victualled and

watered, and surely, watering at the fountain of Arethusa, we must have

victory. We shall sail with the first breeze, and be assured I will

return either crowned with laurel or covered with cypress.”

And now begins the great epic of the Nile.

Casting his mind over all the sea, Nelson was inclined to believe the

French destination was Alexandria, yet could not be certain, and mistake

was ruin. He summoned aboard his flagship the four captains in whom he

placed his utmost confidence: Saumarez, Troubridge, Ball and Darby. One

may picture the conference in the Admiral’s cabin of the _Vanguard_—the

awful issues hanging upon decision, and Nelson’s worn face flame-white

at the end of the table. He believed in his own heart that he might have

broken down physically but for that inner certitude. “On the 18th I had

near died with the swelling of the vessels of the heart.” And he held

grimly on.

The little council of war had decided for Alexandria, and so with a

favouring wind away goes the Fleet down the Mediterranean, not only

Nelson’s own reputation at stake, but England—all—if he has erred. A

terrible cast of the dice for a young admiral, not even a commander in

chief. But he never feared responsibility.

And in the afternoon of the 1st August, 1798, the masthead lookout of

the _Zealous_ changed the course of the world’s history by announcing

the enemy, lying in Aboukir Bay, fifteen miles east of Alexandria. The

chase is ended.

Since that great battle of the Nile has been told in poetry and in the

cool precision of naval historians, shall a mere romancer attempt the

middle, the impossible course? Better leave it immense, vague, majestic,

half hidden in the smoke of guns and drowned in their uproar. It is a

battle of the Titans, the foes of centuries at death-grips for the

mastery of the world: the old and new worlds tremble in the balance; the

American continent, the ancient glories of the Moguls in India, are all

at stake in Aboukir Bay; and while the ships lock together in a horrible

bridal flash and roar in groups, in duel, and solitary terrible combat,

no man yet can say which way the inevitable scale will turn. No man but

one. He knows. He has read the purpose of Heaven in Naples, in Syracuse,

and he cannot doubt. Wounded in the head, believing death at hand, still

he clings to his certitude, giving his orders now from the cabin where

the surgeons have in vain implored him to lie down and take what rest is

possible in the seaquake and thunder shaking the ship.

And then Captain Berry rushes below with great, yet terrible news. The

mighty _Orient_, the French flagship, boastfully named for her errand,

is on fire, and the British Captains are directing their guns on the

flames, friendly to them, that none may dare to extinguish them. Wound

or no wound Nelson is on deck next moment, to see the ships, friend and

foe, alike veering or slipping their cables lest the frightful

catastrophe should involve them also in ruin; one English ship, the

_Alexander_, clinging bulldog-like to her prey until all but aflame,

then sullenly withdrawing. The gallant French gunners below are still

firing—they do not know the hell on deck—and Nelson, white, bloody,

clinging to a stay for support with his one arm, gives orders that his

only boat still serviceable be launched to help the survivors in the

immense catastrophe that all now see at hand and draw back to watch in a

mute horror. The great flames soar up to zenith. It is hell, hell,

before their eyes; and slowly, sullenly, one by one her guns cease

firing. They are done, their gunners dead and dying beside them; and at

last there is silence but for the crackling and singing of flame, and

then with a roar that storms heaven itself, the mighty ship blows up,

and a deadly quiet settles on the sea beneath the calm incurious eyes of

the Egyptian stars looking down on floating and human wreckage.

“Almighty God having blessed His Majesty’s arms with victory,

the Admiral intends returning public Thanksgiving for the same

at two o’clock this day; and he recommends every ship doing the

same as soon as convenient.

“_Vanguard._ Off the Mouth of the Nile. 2nd, August, 1798.”

It is done. The Mediterranean is English once more and Napoleon’s dream

of French domination in Egypt broken. _Non nobis Domine_ is the cry on

Nelson’s lips—Not unto us, O Lord; not unto us.

But she was His instrument; without her, it could not have been done. He

knows it. She shall have the earliest news if it be at all in his power.

She, who struck with him in every blow, to whom every man in the Fleet

owes his devotion; Saint Emma, as he was to call her later.