“But, Sir William, my good, my excellent friend,” says Nelson, intervening, “while I have you cannot and shall not be in any difficulty. What don’t I owe to you and her Ladyship that no money can repay? Name your sum and become my debtor, and be very sure you will never be pressed either for interest or principal.”
There were the usual protestations, but Nelson, infatuated as he now was, and truly owing the Hamiltons a debt beyond money, insisted, and lent Sir William several thousands, besides paying the cost of upkeep which, when it was inconvenient for Emma, fell wholly on him. This scandal got wind also, and flew over Palermo, disseminating itself throughout the Fleet to Lord Keith, and through and beyond him to England.
Sir William earned the unpleasing name of le mari complaisant, and rumour grew more and more venomous daily. Greville was a powerful factor in restraining the worst reports and in propagating others. He had with cool placidity accepted Sir William as a fool from the day he took Emma into the Embassy, and could at least reflect with satisfaction that he had warned him. But he never thought worse of his uncle than this, and defended him in all companies on more grounds than one.
“His kind heart can entertain no suspicions, and amiable as Lady Hamilton undoubtedly is, her laxity of good nature and all her circumstances rendered her very unfit to take the lead as she is doing with my Lord Nelson’s aid,” he said coolly to all who discussed the matter with him. “She is—well, what you might expect! And I understand that Nelson is the simplest of men apart from his profession and entirely in her hands. By the way, my Lord, I hear from Palermo that very high play is indulged in there as a variation to other amusements, and that many of the chief houses are merely gambling resorts.”
“Does Her Ladyship play high?” asks the delighted listener.
“Why, I am told she has a perfect passion for faro and such games. Certainly my uncle’s fortune cannot support high play and therefore I cannot suppose high play. But fair ladies have means of supplying themselves with the sinews of war.” So Greville, most skilful to hint a fault and hesitate dislike. He dared no more.
It will easily be seen that no bed of roses was preparing in England for the Hamiltons and Nelson when the time should come for return to the north.
Meanwhile the voluptuous south lapped them in its enervating delights. Nelson loathed, yet clung to it, for her sake. He hated the laxities of the Court. They appeared to reflect their own black shadow on his love for Emma, and make all of an equal turpitude. These dissolute men and wanton women were hateful in his eyes. He would not have her near them if he could keep her away from the pollution. And the gaming—the wasteful senseless gaming; the loud empty laughter. His heart was heavy within him, though for love’s sake he followed where she led. Had he been a classical scholar he might have remembered that Sicily was the fabled land of many of the perils of Ulysses. Near here the much-enduring man had escaped from the devouring Cyclops, and in the soft azure of the sea might still be seen the rocks the monster flung after him in vain. Here the sea-nymph Galatea melted crystalline into the arms of Acis; here Dis ravished Persephone from her disconsolate mother to reign with him as Queen of Shadows and Darkness.
Many warnings were about him, but all unheeded, for Emma filled his soul, and through Emma’s bewitchments, her Queen, until the sovereignty of Naples became a clog on the honour of England and day by day he sank deeper into his dream. It narcotized him. The ships came and went: ships that formerly could never have raised anchor but he would have been on the quarterdeck alert and keen; but now they sailed away on their fateful errands and he remained in Palermo.
Napoleon slipped back through the English guard from Egypt and landed in France to pursue his meteoric mischiefs, and still Nelson lingered. Men talked of the Garden of Armida and the enchantress who held him there, but none as yet had the boldness to bring him face to face with the truth.