And so within a few days the Admiral was about and able to attend, in some fashion, the fêtes given day and night in his honour (and much to his inconvenience), the principal of which were the grand ball given by Count Esterhazy, and the ball of the British Ambassador on the 29th, which was the Admiral’s birthday, and of which more anon.
Chapter X.—What happened at the Ball given by Lady Hamilton in honour of the Admiral.
NO one is ever likely to forget the entertainment given by the Ambassador and Lady Hamilton in honour of the Admiral’s birthday. Eighty sat down to dinner, mind you, in a private house; but I will not attempt to describe by hearsay what happened there—the toasts that were given, the furore with which they were received; for, naturally, I was not present, being only a midshipman at the time. But at the ball which followed I was present from the opening to the end, and it was a truly wonderful affair. There were about seventeen hundred present, and eight hundred of us sat down to supper, and the supper was rich enough to have been a dinner.
There was more dancing here and at Count Esterhazy’s ball than there had been at Syracuse; for many English of consideration went to Naples in those days, and the ladies of high Neapolitan society had made it a fashion to learn the English dances; but the midshipmen and the younger lieutenants, fresh from the sea-fare of a long cruise, supped more than danced. You can be sure that there was no lack of toasting, for which the Admiral’s stepson, Josiah Nisbet, whom he always treated as his own son, was a fair mark. Some one coupled a toast with his name, and the jest took, and after that he had no respite; and before the night was over Josiah had taken a good deal more than his share of the Ambassador’s very excellent wine, and had become well accustomed to the sound of his own voice.
But even boys cannot sup all night, and slowly we found our way back towards the ball-room. I passed in with Josiah, for I had not Will with me, he being in attendance on the Admiral, and indeed at no time disposed for drinking parties: they would not allow of the barrier of reserve which it was his intention to maintain.
Well, as we passed on our way into the ball-room, we saw Will standing alone in an ante-chamber and made for him, only to find him posted at a gentlemanly distance from the Admiral, who was sitting on a couch with his left arm stretched over the end, and My Lady with her right hand on his empty sleeve pouring out a woman’s hero-worship with soft speech and glistening eye and gentle attitude. Right-down hero-worship I felt convinced it was. Every one in Naples was intoxicated with Nelson, and she above all, who from the time his fleet was come into the Mediterranean, had wrestled with all her might and main to second his efforts to find and finish the French. Indeed, we have it in the Admiral’s writing that it was owing to her aid in the matter of getting the ships watered that we ever got to the Nile in time.
I do not doubt that she was asking him for the fiftieth time how he felt when he took the risk of sailing between the French and the shore—between the French and their anchors, or how he felt when the Orient blew up, or was telling him he was the greatest hero that ever lived. But Josiah thought otherwise, and swashing up to the Admiral in the most offensive style, struck an attitude before him, and began another of the speeches which had been affording us such excellent entertainment while we were supping, as he grew braver and braver with his wine. The language he used I shall not repeat. It was the request of the gallant Captain, whose conduct crushed out the spark which threatened such a blaze, that the officers who were present should not repeat what they had heard. But as there have been many allusions to the incident since, I do not think that I shall be betraying confidence if I give a general outline of it as I had the pain of seeing it. The general tenor of it was that he called upon the Admiral in the name of “my mother and your wife” to tear himself from the embraces of that ——, and here he applied to My Lady the epithets for which silence was desired, as I have mentioned.
I do not say but that at a later period some sort of remonstrance might have come with fair grace and proper spirit from Josiah in the name of his mother, the Admiral’s wife, anent Lady Hamilton; but at this period I feel certain that it was wholly unjust and uncalled for, and that it was so is proved by the very cordial relations existing a few months later between Josiah and that remarkable woman, who added to her other magnificent qualities a fine forgivingness.
For the moment all Naples might have gone ablaze with the British Admiral and the British Ambassador set by the ears over an alleged intrigue of this kind, and the work of the Battle of the Nile might almost have been undone so far as the Two Sicilies were concerned. I looked to see what Will would do. It was one of the few occasions in his life upon which I have ever seen him waver. The position was certainly difficult. The Admiral’s stepson was his senior in rank, and the outrage being offered to the Admiral was, in a way, a family affair, in which a stranger might be considered to have no right to interfere. On the other hand, the Admiral being but one-armed and lately recovered of a fever, could not turn Josiah out of the room, and Will had for some months been treated by the Admiral as if he were his own son. Indeed, the Admiral’s relations with Will were of a more unbroken and cordial nature than his relations with Josiah; but as Josiah went on raising his voice and crying out more and more outrageous things, Will quitted his hesitation and was advancing with set face to do—I tremble to think what—when he found himself pushed aside by a big, burly form in a post-captain’s uniform; and, to our intense relief, we saw Captain Troubridge and Captain Ball rush into the room. Troubridge, the Admiral’s brother-in-arms for a quarter of a century, took in the situation at a glance, and, affecting to consider the whole matter a drunkard’s folly, caught Josiah up in his herculean embrace, and carried him off kicking like a naughty child. To his own ship, I think, for the Captain did not appear again, although his not appearing may have been due to the idea that he could thus escape the discussion of so difficult a matter, which would have been almost inevitable if he had been near the Admiral again that night.