There were the strangest moments of confidence between them in the half hours they could snatch together in the room of the mirrors when Hamilton was toiling in his office downstairs—moments of self-deception on Nelson’s part which Emma half prayed might always continue, half longed to break into reality as her life had taught it to her.
“My Emma, my own true comrade, never was such a friendship as ours in all the world. We will prove that a man and woman may be friends, with the deepest love to bind them and yet loyal as brother and sister to every obligation of honour.”
And this with her warm hand clasped in his, her violet-grey eyes glowing on him! She smiled, responsive.
“Yes, yes, it is true. We are not made of common clay, Nelson, you and me. What others cannot do, we can. See, I kiss your dear eyes with never a thought that your wife would scorn if she could know. I wish with all my soul she were here that I might serve her and show her that Emma’s heart is true as steel to her and hers. You know it is true. I would have her know it also. What does she say of me in her letters?”
“She writes calmly but kindly. It is not her way like yours, my beloved, to expend her heart in writing or speaking, but indeed she is a good, good woman, and may Heaven desert me the day I cause her a pang that could be spared.”
“Would she comprehend our friendship, do you think? Does she understand how great and commanding is your genius? Would she despise your poor Emma for her adoration of the gifts that have brought the world to your feet?”
“I have never known Fanny despise a living soul. She is all that is humble and kind,” Nelson said gravely, “and I hope beyond expression that in days to come you and she may be friends and live in harmony which will make us indeed tria juncta in uno, to use your own dear words.”
“She answered my letters coldly,” says Emma with a moisture on her flower-soft lashes. “It cut me to the heart. Oh, if she could but know my heart’s true friendship.”
“She will. She shall. I have assured her of it in letter after letter. But let us talk of the Queen.”
The subject was painful to him, until Fanny should indeed be brought to comprehend all his motives. But Nelson’s simplicity blinded him to much he had better have realized. Those who knew him best knew it and feared. A vague rumour of what was called “the flirtation” spread along the Mediterranean and reached old St. Vincent. He, knowing Nelson, dismissed it with a shrug of his shoulders and the dictum that Nelson and Emma were a couple of silly sentimental fools, no worse, but he began to be on the alert nevertheless concerning the Vanguard’s visits to Naples, to be impatient of the Sicilian imbroglio and to wish that Nelson would put the matter in Troubridge’s or some other such man’s capable hands and there leave it. Nelson and Emma were born romantics, he thought. They fed each other’s flame foolishly. It was all very well for himself, old and seasoned, to write to her that he was her knight errant. It was a very different and more dangerous matter for Nelson to play the part in earnest. He wished Lady Nelson would come out and look after him.