And so the Fleet sailed from Naples.
PART IV
CHAPTER XXII
THE MERIDIAN
It appeared to Nelson in the anxious days coming on that Heaven itself had sent him the destined helper in his war against French domination. Two things were clear as noonday to the perception of his military genius: that Buonaparte if unchecked must rule the world, and that the theatre of Armageddon would be in the Mediterranean and lands adjacent.
And presently there was a fresh and cruel anxiety about Malta. And to all these matters, the miserable intriguing kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the key from its natural position and its harbours. Then to whom could he turn but to the marvellous woman who divined his thoughts even as he thought them, who used her unique position in the Court solely to aid his views, and who so believed in him, inspired him, that he could not say where the one blended with the other nor whether a thing was his own doing or hers?
It is easy to believe what falls in with one’s own hopes and wishes, and it became a creed with the lovers that the interests of England and the Two Sicilies were one and that together they must stand and fall. If that were so then duty, honour, alike bound him to the service of that puny court and people. For him, Europe stood or fell with Mediterranean policy, and Emma, quick as intuition and quicker, saw it with him, and undertook to imbue the Queen with the Nelsonic doctrine.
He wrote perpetually to her and to Sir William. He drew up a paper outlining his policy, which she must study. Can the imagination at all paint what it must have been to Emma—the Emma of the ghastly memories—to find herself the trusted counsellor of such a man, at such a time? It flattered her pride and ambition as they had never been flattered yet. She saw herself the very arbitress of Europe, and in those days, nothing, nothing seemed impossible to her powers. She flung all her exuberant energies into his service, for what they dreamed together he could execute, and who was to set a bound to their achievement?
And some day—here the baser elements stirred in her—some day—well, Sir William was old, ageing daily. There might be a future, splendid beyond all hopes—no, no, gratitude, everything, forbade her even to imagine such a thing. The present was enough. She had never known such a man—how could she? And he not only loved her but saw in her his guiding star, the inspiration deprived of which his own ardours must flag.