Captain Nelson sat alone in the cool and beautiful room considering the events of the morning with that swift mind of his, and of these his beautiful hostess came last in interest. Could he have made a mistake in opening the Admiral’s request for troops to the King? That was a vital matter for the Fleet and, not only that, but would affect his own professional reputation according to success or failure. But then, if so, Sir William should have given him a check somehow. He rose and took a turn about the room, considering, and touched the bell and with what many young captains would have considered consummate impudence requested he might have the honour of a few words with His Excellency before starting for the Royal audience. “Certainly,” was the answer, “if Captain Nelson would kindly follow the messenger.”
He rose at once, seeing Lady Hamilton through one of the windows, standing with Nisbet in the loggia. Her hand was on his shoulder, near as high as her own, and she was pointing to the sea, her face in the shadow of a great straw hat. He lingered an imperceptible moment, for the attitude, her womanly figure in its flowing white, and the sweet laughing face brought his home so tenderly and touchingly before him after the weary storm-tossed months before Toulon, the solitary years at sea, that his throat constricted and in his quick emotional way a moisture clouded his eyes. He saw his wife, his Fanny, fluttering her handkerchief as he drove off to join his ship at Portsmouth, his old father standing at her shoulder. For a moment, this stranger woman was Home to him, after all the sea loneliness.
What had he heard of her? He tried to remember, as he followed to Sir William’s study. Of course the Fleet gossiped on all the Mediterranean doings when the captains assembled at one another’s or the Admiral’s table for business as much as for pleasure. He remembered Lord Hood’s speaking of Sir William Hamilton.
“A gentleman, if ever there was one, grandson of the Duke of Hamilton, but should be attending to the Jacobins in Naples sooner than collecting old vases. A hobby well enough for a man in Pall Mall, but, by the Lord, sir, Naples is a perfect hotbed of vice; the very soil for the seeds of Jacobinism to fester in! The King of the Two Sicilies will be a broken reed to lean on when we come to close grips with the Mounseers.”
And then one of the captains, laughing, “A man of taste other ways than in vases, my Lord. He married his mistress, the famous Mrs. Hart. They say he fell in love with her because there wasn’t one of his ancient statues she could not represent with a white cloth about her.”
And another: “I saw her in London, my Lord, at the opera when we were refitting at Portsmouth. A wonder—a regular blue-eyed English beauty. For my part, I can’t blame His Excellency. ’Tis the only way to secure a mistress’s fidelity.”
And Lord Hood with his long, lean face, summing up: “Why, sir, ’tis the worst of all ways for a man for it gives a bad woman security to befool him. And I would have you all to warn your officers if duty should call them to Naples that it has the name of being a sink of iniquity—every woman a wanton” (but His Lordship used a Biblical term) “and every man a fiddler or a fool, and act accordingly in the giving of leave in the ward-room and gun-room. All the same, be she what she will, Lady Hamilton is Ambassadress and said to be as thick as thieves with the Queen of Naples—a bird of the same feather if all tales be true. And now, gentlemen, to business!”
And then the thing passed from his mind like breath from a looking glass. He had no reason to expect a visit to Naples for himself. But, with the surrender of Toulon, it came, for the Agamemnon was a fast sailer and speed the essential. No thought of the story revived in him, thronged with great events and anxieties, until that moment.
Sir William was sitting at his bureau with a list before him which looked much more like a catalogue of objets d’art than a summary of the Neapolitan forces—but let that pass. Captain Nelson knew quite as little of the former as Sir William of the latter, and might be mistaken. He was as formal as his youth and subordination demanded.
“Your Excellency, I have made bold to ask a private word, for I understand we go to the Palace shortly.”