“I hardly saw dear Emma all day. Sir William, though he has borne the journey pretty well, has these bilious fevers so very seriously now, that he needs the closest watching. I saw her, for a minute, when I came back from the dockyard for dinner with the Queen, but I had cut the time so fine that it was the barest minute. I found the dinner very long. I had matters of the first moment to discuss with nearly every one around me, but had to be mum. This cursed place is so full of spies. One never knows that the fellow who takes away your broken victuals may not be a French diplomatist, equal in rank to a Secretary of Legation, playing the spy! So we had to fall back on the usual table talk,—scandal, almost the only topic in which it is safe to indulge, and one which includes every one in Naples, except those who are present, who will have their turn on their first absence.
“Dinner over—and the gentlemen did not stay at their wine—after a short conversation with the Princess, who is the only one of Her Majesty’s ladies who takes much pains to speak English, at which she is becoming quite intelligible, we went off to a consultation, which was to be followed by what Her Majesty has christened a Session, not a Council, in order that she may not have to summon the whole of her Ministers. This, of course, is aimed at the Marquis de Gallo, the War Minister, who is tottering and to be replaced. I am glad of this, for I detest him. He is as ignorant a fellow of common civility as he is of his duties. Sir William, whose health is better to-day, drove up for the consultation, at which De Gallo was also present; and I was led to believe that promises of protection, with supplies of arms, ammunition, and provisions (as I understood from the Governors of Syracuse and Messina), had been given to the inhabitants of Malta.
“I returned with Sir William in his coach to the Embassy, when he at once retired for the night, under care of Emma, who was waiting anxiously to receive him. I also retired. I was, indeed, glad, for more than one reason, to be in the quiet of my chamber. Here in Naples one lives in one’s bedchamber when one is alone; for it is furnished for receptions, and its own reception-rooms, attached to it, are mere ante-chambers, where one receives tradesmen, or those who would weary one of their business, instead of admitting them into one’s privacy. The operations in the dockyard had kept me a good deal on my legs and much in the sun; and I remembered the moonlight scene of which I had been deprived on the night of the Queen’s banquet, so, after dinner, when My Lady retired to Sir William, who was dining in his own apartment—not caring to be present when there were dishes that he favoured, but of which he dare not partake, for he is a great connoisseur—I went up to my chamber and bade my man, Tom Allen, fling open windows and shutters in the corner which commanded the Bay. When he had done this, ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ he said, saluting me, ‘shall you be needing me any more to-night?’ It is my habit, when I am alone, to give him leave off when I do not require his services. He is a good fellow, Tom, though the queerest-looking fish, and, indeed, the queerest fish who was ever allowed to appear as the servant of a public man. He is a good fellow, but he irritates me with his over-care for my health, so I am glad to be rid of him till midnight.
“There is, it seems, to be some kind of a gala for the men of the fleet at Virgil’s tomb, on the face of the Hill of Pausilippo, which is to be decorated with many lamps and ‘N.V.’ in roses, the V. representing Victory and not Virgil—who is, however, esteemed a great witch among the lazzaroni. I was glad to be rid of the good Tom, for in a minute he would have been busying in to close the windows. Naples and the mal’ aria spell the same thing to him; and it was so heavenly to see the large open squares of dark-blue starlit sky as I was sitting at my table intending to confess to you, Pen. But no confessions would come, so I rose and walked to the windows, from the right hand of which I could distinctly see the glare of the lamps, with which they were decorating Virgil in my honour, in his vineyard on the hill of Pausilippo, and the crescent of flickering lights from the Cape to the end of the Thuilleries. But the other interested me more, for from it I could see the calm, gently-heaving sea, with the lanterns of the fisher-boats bobbing round the rocks, and the flashing port-holes of my squadron, and a broad shaft of moonlight on the water, which made Capri just visible at the far end, and seemed to bring out every stone in the lofty walls of the strong Castle of Uovo and the long narrow drawbridge from the Castle to the gate-tower, and the gate-tower to the shore. And, much as in my heart I despise Naples for the lightness with which she gives herself over to fiddling and illuminations the moment the darkness, which the Neapolitans love as other people love the light, supervenes, I must confess that it added greatly to the gaiety of the scene upon which I looked.
“As I stood by the window, half angry, half adoring the Naples which has made me so happy with the first perfect companionship my life has known, I felt a hand upon my shoulder, a woman’s face against my neck.
“‘My Nelson,’ she said, ‘the room where I had crooned Sir William asleep was dark, and the moonbeams came in, and I remember how I deprived you two nights ago, and I came to this room, which is the only one that sweeps the Bay, to share the moonlight with you. Say that you would not have cared for it so much without me.’
“I did not speak—my heart was too full for words; but one can say without words the deepest things in one’s nature, and as I stood with my hand round her side, she continued:
“‘My mother has taken my place for two hours, to let me get some rest now that my dear husband is recovering.’ And then, suddenly turning round, she looked at me with all her soul in her eyes, that were wont to be so full of laughter, though with her mouth she ever smiled more than laughed, and even now those exquisite lips were parting in a tender smile. I do not know to what I can compare them, except crimson rose-leaves laid lightly on the whitest and most perfect teeth in the world. And the little straight nose, which gives the face its merry, mischievous air when she is laughing, gave it now, with its delicate nostrils, a touching air of femininity. I could see every little womanly perfection in the dazzling white moonlight which poured into the window. She stood a little like this, and then she inclined her gracious head to whisper: ‘And what rest is there for me like a quiet hour with you—the saviour of our countries, the hero of my heart! Everything here breathes to me of you. If I look out on to the Bay, the serried lines of lights show me ships which fought in your victory, the greatest the sea has ever seen. If I look on the land, wherever I see a flare of light, or hear a band of music, I know that they are celebrating you. The Queen, in her palace, has your heroic name hardly ever off her lips; and here, in my palace, every soul is thinking and talking of you; and I worship you.’
“We stood for a short time almost in silence, taking in, with dreaming eyes, the gentle lights, the soft Southern moonlight, the crowning stars; and then I led her to the door, and kissing her reverently on the threshold, bade her go and take her much-needed rest. She hesitated for a few moments; then, flinging her arms round me, she kissed me with oh, such tenderness, and looked into my eyes. Then she released me, and saying—‘My Lord’s first command!’ glid swiftly away, without so much as looking round.
“Oct. 13th. Later.—I have played at being a coward, and run away, the first time in my life except from the storm at Teneriffe,—I protest that it was the storm and not the Spaniards.