The faithful Troubridge heard it from the next room and dashed in.
“Nisbet, good God!—come away! My Lord! Madam! Take no notice! He is mad drunk. Nisbet, if you don’t come away, I’ll knock you down.”
Still foaming out insults, Troubridge got him to the ground, and roughly secured his arms behind his back. Gag him he could not, and still the hoarse shouting continued. Emma, on a signal from Nelson, had slipped out of the room, and Troubridge shouted for Capel and they dashed cold water over his head and got him away in a half comic, half tragic frenzy to the waterside and to a boat and so out of sight and hearing. A burlesque in a way. Men laughed in the wardrooms of the ships when they heard it, and not one but said the cub should be turned adrift after all his stepfather’s goodness to him and endurance of his fat-head follies.
Yet also, there was not an eye but watched the beauty and the Admiral the closer when they were together, not an ear but was lengthened to catch the drift of gossip from that day on.
Josiah called next day and made his humble apology. He had been overtaken by drink in honour of the great victory and could not recall a single word he had said. Inexcusable, yet would the good Angel of the Fleet forgive the unforgivable? With forced kindliness that covered a pale rage and shame she forgave him for fear of worse, even wrote friendly-fashion of him in a letter to his mother a few days later, dreading what he might have said in that quarter. Nelson refused to see him. The insult to his commanding officer covered that.
But what, what had he seen, was her question to herself. That could neither be guessed nor opened up, and it left her face to face with her own judgment. Believe it or not who will, that kiss burnt on Emma’s lips more scorching than to the chastest wife in England, for it opened up all the gulfs of memory. She knew. As a wretch, climbed from the quicksands dimpling and quivering beneath him, knows their horrors, their slow unfolding of the doomed man body and soul, where another who has never struggled in them sees but the glassy pools on the surface and fears to wet his feet, so it was with Emma. A kiss! A word! She knew what dumb horrors might lie beneath a light approach, and trembled. But it could not help her. When the quicksands have the man by the foot, and a kiss a woman by the heart, what safety?
The day before the Fleet left, the lovers, for so indeed they were, met alone in the room of mirrors.
“Will you remember me? Will you write?” he asked, dry-lipped.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered, and half choked on the thought of his going.
“We must write!” he said as if in half excuse. “There will be sharp work at Naples yet, and only you to guide it and protect the Royals.”