Having so often heard the tradition of his taciturnity at the table, I own I was most astonished at his flow of table talk; for, though he paid My Lady compliments not a few, they were no more than any other officer in his fleet would have paid—certainly no more than such men as Captain Troubridge and Captain Hallowell, who had not his flow of other conversation.
That the Admiral could express himself well, any one who has read his letters published from time to time could not fail to see. He was no maker of epigrams, but he said things so briefly, and so to the point, that one could remember them like epigrams; and, for a seaman, he had a remarkably well-stored mind. A full knowledge of history he considered essential to every commander who would understand his business; and I think that during those years on shore before the battle of St. Vincent, when he was living a sort of farmer’s life in his father’s parsonage, he must have had the run of a fairly-stocked library and mastered its contents, as it was his wont to master anything he put his mind to. He was likely talking his best, for was he not next to one of the world’s most famous beauties in the first days of the friendship to which she had shown herself so well disposed? What I overheard of their conversation I cannot, as one of the Admiral’s officers, bring myself to write; not that there was anything that I should blush to repeat on paper, but indeed I could rather write down a man’s coarseness than his tenderness, for his tenderness is sacred to the person to whom it is addressed, and his coarseness is mere anathema. But I think I may say something of their appearance, which any one at the table, and servants, could see as well as I. The Admiral had on his battle look. As is well known, when battle was imminent, until the moment for deeds came, after making his dispositions, he would retire and write his last letters and his last wishes, and think of those he loved best, and pray for his country and them. He prayed till the last moment before his actual service as a commander was required; and in after years, when My Lady was wife to him in all but name, the lack of a conventional marriage-tie between them did not prevent that great heart from mingling the woman he loved best with the last prayers which ascended to his Creator. But when the moment came for the round shot to be tearing the decks, and sowing death, the Admiral would be on his quarter-deck all alert, but smiling like a boy playing a game in which he is the best player.
It was that light-hearted boy’s look he wore while he sat by My Lady that first night on which I saw them much together.
And as for her, she had just that gracious look of the woman, who has been the unconquered Amazon all her life, when she has found the man for whom she will surrender. Not that My Lady had ever been the unconquered Amazon, but she had every womanly graciousness in her repertoire, and could use them with a generousness, which made them genuine, as the occasion demanded. And this was the finest and best of them. That My Lady was capable of a passionate devotion had been shown by her fidelity to Mr. Greville. The Admiral was exactly qualified to take her whole heart. To her imagination, her pride in her country, her pride of vanity, he appealed more highly than was possible for any other man living, and to her generous affectionate woman’s heart, which must have been bruised by Mr. Greville’s desertion and weary of Sir William’s weakness, his chivalrousness, and the affectionate esprit de corps which made every man who ever served with him his slave, came as a balm and a cordial.
These two were all in all to each other that night. The Admiral, as I have said, alert and smiling, was rarely brilliant for him; My Lady, with beautiful eager face, and every now and then a sort of happy sob heaving in that exquisite white bosom, was hanging on his words.
Though I said they were all in all, the Admiral had perforce to address himself to Her Majesty sufficiently, and from time to time to call out some toast or make some rally to his captains.
It seemed to me, who was only a boy then, that Her Majesty was of a purpose devoting her whole attention to Captain Troubridge, to whom she had given the second place of honour on her left hand—he being the most distinguished of the captains present. I did not think then all I am about to say, for I knew less of life, and I had not the light of what has happened since to guide me; but, testing the proceedings with these acids, I should say that the daughter of Maria Theresa was desirous on the one hand of giving Lady Hamilton full play in subjugating the Admiral, and that on the other hand she was desirous of bringing all the influences of her beauty, her womanly charm, her splendid birth, and her queenhood, to bear upon the bluff British sailor, who was of all the least amenable to women’s wiles, and who was in the future always to be in the balance against the influence of herself and Lady Hamilton with the Admiral. Speaking from memory and experience, I picture Captain Troubridge as a little uneasy in this bower of Armida. But there was one thing which made him to some extent the willing servant to the Queen of Naples,—Captain Troubridge was a fighting man, and he had the highest admiration for the courage, resourcefulness and patriotism of the woman who, married to a roi fainéant, made such a good fight to maintain her kingdom’s place among the nations.
As for myself, the dinner was rather mortifying, for My Lady, after placing me next to her, forgot my existence, until a lackey, breaking a crystal goblet on her right hand between her and me, in the attempt to fill it without disturbing her colloquy with the Admiral, made a portentous crash which attracted the attention of the whole company, including even My Lady; who, suddenly becoming aware of my existence, and feeling that she had treated me rather badly, put her arm round me and kissed me, with everybody looking. The blood rushed to my head until I must have looked like the merchant ensign; and, to add to my confusion, the lady on the other side, who was the wife of an Italian prince and could not speak a word of English, seized the cue, and almost took me on her knee in her attempt to make up for her deficiency as a linguist.
At last that terrible banquet ended, and the company scattered about the reception-rooms and the terrace overlooking the sea. The Admiral and My Lady went out on the terrace. Her Majesty remained in the great room, which she had recently had decorated with frescoes in the style discovered in the excavations at Pompeji. She made rather an ostentation of talking to Neapolitans, and principally to the ladies among them; the subject of their conversation, from their looks, being the manly beauty of the English officers gathered under the centre chandelier—a splendid group. In true English style the captains stood together talking—no doubt of Service matters, just as they would when they met almost daily on the flagship or in the Admiral’s anterooms at My Lady’s palace.
Will, his services not being required by the Admiral, was standing a little way from them. He was English, and therefore wished to do what the English did, and yet had too much pride and too good manners to go nearer to his superior officers; and I humbly took up my position by him, not expecting him to talk to me upon such an occasion, but from sheer not knowing what else to do.