I, for one, who was so much with our Admiral, would stake my life on it that My Lady’s companionship, her lightly caressing hand on his arm or shoulder, the kiss of good-fellowship which a daughter would give to a father, meant much more to him than the passion for which their lives have been branded. The Admiral’s very physique was one which craved for gentleness rather than passion. That what the world reprobates did occur between them I take to be the result of two things: firstly, that his delicate, highly-strung constitution could not be in constant proximity with the rich vitality of hers without gaining in vigour; and secondly, that even with the best of men, as Shakespear said, “The sight of means to do ill deeds oft maketh ill deeds done.”
Chapter XXIV.—How the Admiral went to the Favara, and the Prophecy began its Fulfilment.
FOR days past the Favara had been in a state of ferment unknown for many years. The greatest hero of the age, the man who was duelling with Buonaparte for the safety or extinction of the world, and had pinned the destroyer in Egypt, was to visit, to sleep a night, at the ancient and decaying palace of the ancient and decaying Norman House of the Princes of Favara. The Admiral, with the considerateness which he extended to the humblest sailor in his fleet, having ascertained from Will the straitened fortunes of the House, had announced his intention of coming in the most friendly way alone—an announcement which, but for a certain circumstance, might have given dire offence; for in Sicily you must not notice poverty, you must allow yourself to be deceived.
Well, to cut a long story short, the Admiral, attended only by Will and myself, drove out in the afternoon to the Favara, somewhat later than we had expected, because of a most stormy interview, I should say desperate interview, with my beautiful Lady, who, before us, hung round the Admiral’s neck, overwhelming him with the embraces of a loving and solicitous woman, as she entreated him not to go. She had heard, she said, rumours that certain sympathisers of the French, disguised as brigands, would take advantage of the loneliness of the Favara, and its neighbourhood to the wild mountains, to assassinate him. Yes, she had it on the best authority that they would not even attempt to carry him off, conceiving that only by his death could the French interests be served.
The risk to himself the Admiral, as ever, made light of; indeed, he did not believe it, considering it but the subterfuge of a woman who loved him, he knew how well, to keep him at her beloved side during his last days at Palermo. And since he loved her with all the strength of his mighty soul, he was so far conquered by her tears and her caresses that he pretended to be convinced and promised to consider the matter, and if he should hear further, to make his excuse to the Prince of Favara.
Great preparations were made for his arrival. I could not count the servants in the Prince’s magnificent but tarnished liveries. They swarmed at the entrance, and lined every stairway and gallery; and there were preparations for a brilliant fête and illumination of the whole of the vast and ancient fabric.
As we approached, a fine band, also in the livery of the House, played English airs like “Rule Britannia,” then new to the Sicilies; and the Prince and Donna Rusidda, in splendid Court dress, met us at the very entrance of the grand salon, from which I noticed the famous silken hangings had been stripped, leaving the polished porphyry and the Cosmato work exposed, which at once struck the Admiral’s attention. He had hardly got through the formal greetings before he commented on the splendour of the apartment. Will and I exchanged glances, and knowing by this time something of the country and of the straits of the Prince, were not surprised when we found the bedroom set apart for the Admiral in another part of the palace, which we had not yet visited, decorated with these same silken hangings, which had heretofore hung over the somewhat cold porphyry walls of the grand salon. We recognised further, in this chamber and the galleries approaching to it, nearly every beautiful object which we had seen scattered through the palace when we were chasing round it with Donna Rusidda. We were much struck, at the same time, with the fortress-like character of the place; for the lower windows were all strongly enough barred to resist a military assault, and entrance into the dwelling part there was none except by the two great Arabic doorways set close together on the inner side of the palace, one of which led only to the uninhabited lower rooms rented as a storehouse by the farmer, and the other opened directly into the small portion used by the Prince and his sister, to which the only access was by a narrow stairway walled-in to the ceiling.
“Princess,” the Admiral began, when the Prince and his sister had conducted him to his bed-chamber, for he was by this sick with longing for the beloved society of My Lady, “I fear that I must leave when the other guests bid their adieux this evening, as this is one of my last days in Palermo. There are so many things that might demand my attention.”
“Oh, my Lord Nelson,” she replied, “I entreat you no. You have experienced officers who will have carried out all your commands [which indeed was the case—T. T.], and to us Sicilians there is a world of difference between the guest who comes and goes, and the guest who lays his head for only one night. Our poor house of the Favara is indeed unworthy of such an honour from you, so much desired by even the Queen herself; but we are an ancient race of the same Norman blood as your own kings and nobles. We are the oldest and purest Norman family in Sicily. We have ever maintained the independent traditions of our race towards the Church, and sorely suffered for it in estate. Soon we shall have perished from off the face of the earth, and there will be nothing left of the Princes of the Favara but a name; and we yearn to have it handed down in Sicily, the land of traditions, as the last tradition of the dead old race, that the great hero of the other Norman kingdom so far away slept under our roof in token of friendship and amity.”