“Will Your Majesty permit me a question?”
“Certainly, Eccellenza. You can ask nothing but what is proper.”
A quick smile flashed and was decorously concealed by Sir William’s bow.
“Then, madam, what is Your Majesty’s motive in this graciousness to Mrs. Hart and your humble servant?”
That question could never have been asked nor answered but for past relations—long past, but impossible to be entirely forgotten. The Queen toyed with the heavy paperweight of the bronze Caligula upon her table before she answered, and Hamilton, noting the worn lines in her face, the falsely black tresses which he had once thought so beautiful, remembered Greville’s maxim: “Nothing is so dead as a dead passion.” How could he ever have cared to waken a gleam in the heavy eyes or the tremble of a kiss on the Hapsburg lips which set that family apart from lesser men.
“I will be frank,” she said at last. “Why should I not with one of the men who must be the King’s right hand in the days I see coming as plainly as I see your face? Your liaison with Mrs. Hart has made difficulties on which I would not dwell, for I would not embarrass my friend by so much as a look. But they are real, and will become more pressing in the days I foresee. I am ignorant whether you know that much mischief has been made for you in high places in England, but in any case you cannot know that, I, through channels of my own, have done my best to protect your interests.”
No, that had not occurred to Sir William. He listened with the closest attention. No explanation was needed. As if he had been present he could hear Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, the prim German hausfrau, discussing the matter with her circle, could see the plain, honest King’s disapprobation of his representative’s action in flouting public opinion publicly. Naples was not so far from England but that all its scandals would echo in London. Marie Caroline noted his expression and continued.
“It is an ever-present terror in my mind that you might some day be superseded here by some younger man higher in the favour of certain influential persons, and I will frankly own that my interest is deeply concerned, for when the trouble is upon us if I have no true friend at the English Embassy, where am I to look for help? You see? It needs no labouring.”
“I see, Madam, and words fail me to express my sense of Your Majesty’s confidence in me.”
He knew that was true. What he did not guess was that behind her words the Queen’s swift brain was shaping the thought that if a weak, pleasure-loving man, old and completely in the hands of a fascinating woman likely to be amenable to her own condescensions were removed, she might be checkmated at every turn and England’s selfish policy ignore the pressing needs of the Two Sicilies, and her personal ambitions. Her half-frankness served her well. One does not see oneself as others see one—at least of all the Hamiltons of the earth. He thought a moment and added: