A TROUBLOUS year, but it brought a new part to Emma. Nelson had carried back to Lord Hood an account of the excellent dispositions of the Ambassadress toward the Fleet; the junior officers were full of her praises also. They had a friend at court in the truest sense of the word, and that grim Fleet, tossing about the Mediterranean in storm and sunshine, harassing the French in their every plan, seldom seeing land save as a danger, had need of many things; the officers were certain now that what she could do in their favour she would.
Nelson, who wrote often and warmly to the Hamiltons, though never nearer to them than Leghorn, had passed the knowledge of her warm heart and indefatigable spirit on to Sir John Jervis, now his commander in chief, and urged him to write to the English Embassy for all he needed for his bluejackets.
They were assailing Corsica now—that stronghold of French power in the Mediterranean—and their needs, in the cruel distance from England, were insistent. It seemed absurd to suppose a woman could help them, yet Nelson, his right hand, thought it worth the trial, and Sir John Jervis wrote, full of apologies and suppressed eagerness, direct to the lady herself. Letters to the Ambassador were certainly supervised in the King’s interest. To her they would be empty compliment and pass safely enough. It may give some notion of their straits if we glimpse into Nelson’s letter to my Lord Hood, a little before.
“We are really without firing, wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost without water. Not a rope, canvas, nail or twine in the ship. The ship is so light she cannot hold her side to the wind. We are certainly in a bad plight at present.”
And yet with all these shortcomings, the stronghold of Corsica, Bastia, must be attacked—the more desperately needful because Toulon was again in French hands through the machinations of a little Corsican artillery officer to be known in future as Buonaparte. Strange that two such stars as Nelson and Buonaparte should rush so swiftly to the same zenith in the same years.
Often enough Nelson wished, pacing the quarterdeck in those days, that he could see, instead of the highlands of Corsica, Uovo and Nuovo rounding softly from blue seas, and hear the ringing cordial welcome of the Lady of the Embassy.
“She’s more man than any of them,” he brooded. “I warrant we should not lack for stores if she had her word in it!”
He remembered the promptitude that had supplied the troops for Toulon. She seemed a fair guardian spirit, but alas, too far away. He would have liked her sympathy also in all his new honours, bought by the loss of an eye—yet not too dearly.
Still, he wrote; Sir John Jervis wrote; and she responded eagerly. Ships came tossing down to Corsica, safeguarded by English frigates, loaded gunwale deep with necessities. She bought with extraordinary acumen. One would say she had a seaman’s instinct. They had but to hint and it was done. Amazing part for Emma of Edgware Row! She spent her own money when the Queen’s ran short. The two women had a Neapolitan agent secret as death, who bought for them, chartered the little coasting vessels, and while the two played cards and laughed at the ceremonious Courts and the idle Neapolitan women, sent their bounty Corsica-way and made his own comfortable commission. It was exceedingly well managed.
As for Nelson, beef and pork, rope and flour, were more to him than diamonds to a court beauty, and in his soul he loved her with a generous comrade-love for the help she gave them. Never a light story of her in the Fleet now, if he were present.
“That woman,” he would cry, his face flashing with energy, “is an honour to the name of Englishwoman. She has the Fleet on her heart night and day, and the wit of a man to carry out the needful. Here’s a health to the Patroness of the Fleet!”
And they would drink it standing, in the wine of the country she sent them and with the “Hip, hip, hurra!” Nelson had taught her at Naples.
Her help, any help, was urgent, for that year darkened down from the high hopes of Toulon into grave alarms. The French developed a force more terrible than any discovery of gun or bomb—a man, Napoleon, with all his mighty brain turned upon the destruction of England, and all his devastating energy centred on the means to be adopted—and excepting Nelson, it may well be that there was no Englishman of the day who realized that the Mediterranean was the keystone of the bridge over which he must pass either to world dominion or to ruin.
For Emma, it possessed her. Forgotten were all the Attitudes, the gaieties, the little schemes for pomp and pleasure. She lived but for news of the Fleet; a letter to Sir William from Nelson, or a less guarded one to herself, since that was the safer channel, made up her day’s excitement, and her interviews with the Queen her daily bread. Excitement had always been her native atmosphere. It wearied and aged Sir William; she throve luxuriant. As to the Queen, she could not do without her. Emma was her “chère amie,” “Emma carissima,” and her warmth was repaid in kind.
“My charming Queen!” she wrote to Greville. “Everything one can wish, the best mother, wife, and friend in the world. I live constantly with her and have done so intimately for two years, and if you hear any lyes about her, contradict them, and if you should see a cursed book written by a vile French dog with her character in it, don’t believe one word. No person can be as charming as the Queen. If I was her daughter she could not be kinder to me and I love her as my own soul.”
That was Emma all over—the passionate partisanship which saw nothing but divinity in a friend, nothing but devilry in a foe. And if with all this, there mingled a little feudal romance in favour of the daughter, mother and wife of sovereigns, can the child of the people, herself all romance, be blamed very severely?
Sir William overflowed with these praises in private and, smiling a little at certain reminiscences of his own, would beseech Emma to believe the Queen a little lower than the angels, and besought in vain, and then reflecting philosophically that this was at all events a driving force which spared him much trouble and probably would do more good than harm, betook himself to his vases and gems once more. Emma could have trounced him sometimes but for her affection. His coolness almost drove her mad. But she nursed him tenderly through an anxious illness, and that more than once.
And things grew steadily worse. Napoleon was proving himself statesman as well as warrior, and a terrible fear gained ground that the mean-minded King of Spain would finally throw in his lot with the French Jacobins.
He had excuse for all about him the coalition of kings was breaking up and dissolving into the republics of a day. Austria trembled, Prussia fell off; even the steadfast England wavered.
There was a rumour of orders to evacuate the Mediterranean which caused the Queen and Emma to look at each other in silent despair. If that order were fulfilled, alas for the Two Sicilies! The Little Englanders of the day were slowly dominating the home situation and Nelson, chafing in the Mediterranean, wrote:
“Till this minute it has been usual for the allies of England to fall from her, but till now she never was known to desert her friends whilst she had the power of supporting them.”
And Buonaparte stormed Italy. Northern Italy lay at his feet, conquered, bound, plundered of her ancient glories of statues, pictures, the jewels that most adorned her, and he returned to the Directory in France the most famous general of modern times. They talked of Cæsar, Hannibal, cast in the shade for ever. And so the years went by.
But Spain? Spain was the cruellest anxiety for England—Spain with her harbours, her throne at the Gut of the Mediterranean, her fleet. If she could but know the true intentions of Spain! But how? There the English Cabinet was baffled.
The Queen of the Two Sicilies and Emma had met for an afternoon’s singing. Her Majesty was fond to passion of music, and the Ambassadress’s singing was not “reasonable good” for a great lady, but famous throughout Europe. Who could deny a harassed queen her daily refreshment of sweet song, with talk and refreshments to follow? Princess Belmonte, wife of the Neapolitan Ambassador to the Court of Spain, was with them that day, and full of charming chatter of the Spanish Court, His Neapolitan Majesty’s gracious brother, the King; and so forth; and the Queen, Emma seconding, led her out beyond the caution of an ambassadress in case some grains of information could be picked up.
But the lady, though open as a costume de bal, was also guarded with steel and buckram beneath. She favoured them with such gossip as please ladies, no more, and when she spoke to a lady in waiting at the window, the Queen’s burning eye caught Emma’s.
“Would you not sing for us, chère Miladi? The Princess has not heard you of late. (She has brought a letter for the King!) I beseech you to favour us. (My spies know of a cipher letter.) If I might choose it should be the ‘Guardami.’ ”
“Madam, can I refuse Your Majesty anything? I am scarcely in voice to-day. I have been sitting up all night with my husband, who is extremely unwell. (Will the King show it to Acton?) but if it please you! Would you not prefer the ‘Stella mia’?”
“Oh, madam, what you please. (Certainly he will not. Only the Foreign Minister will know.) Then may I beg it now?”
Emma sent for her music, so tremulous that she doubted if she could sing at all. If this was as the Queen suspected, Spain had succumbed to the successes of Napoleon and—what would Nelson, what would all her friends of the Fleet say? She felt it in her to take this laughing young woman by the throat and drag the paper from her bosom. Instead of which the accompanist opened the music, and she sang with her thoughts far otherwhere, but with more brilliancy than usual if with less feeling.
Compliments, smiles, from the Princess Belmonte, and the other ladies; gracious approval from the Queen; Emma’s sweeping obeisance at the door. She trails down the long corridor, and enters her carriage, marvelling what will be the next turn of this strange wheel.
A ragged urchin with impish smile and the long agate eyes of the south offers a bouquet at the window.
“Buy it, Excellency. Buy it, O loveliest. Flowers, flowers, plucked this morning with the dew on them. O Lady, I have eaten nothing to-day. For the pity of the Virgin and Saint Anna, buy, I beseech you.”
Emma’s heart was never inaccessible to pity and she had long outsoared the Greville limit of a farthing. Ambassadresses must give generously. She pushed a large silver coin into the olive paw, and let the flowers fall carelessly on her lap.
The Princess, the letter—the Queen would not have said that without knowing! That, too, was why she had not been asked to delay after the others. The Queen would risk no suspicion of plotting at this point. Clear as noonday, but then, how could they meet? She moved impatiently, and the bouquet rolled from her lap to the floor and a little grimy paper folded like a quill fell out of it.
English—then Acton was at the back of this also! She read eagerly.
“It is here, but I know not how to obtain it. Suggest.”
That was all, but Emma’s quick wits raced swift as thought. She was in the Queen’s skin. What would she herself do provided Sir William had a secret she wished to master? If the King were so great a fool as to plot behind the Queen’s and Acton’s backs and ruin his country in so doing, what terms could be kept with him? She had her plan clear as noonday in five minutes. If the Queen had her courage it was done. But had she?
She put her head out of the window and ordered her carriage to return to the Palace, and unfastening her glove, took off a small diamond ring, and clasped it in a shut hand with the flowers. It was not long before she was curtseying at the door of the Royal salon again, all smiles and apologies.
“Oh, madam, my carelessness! Will Your Majesty pardon? I have dropped a little ring, not of much value, but to me invaluable as His Excellency’s gift. Have I your permission to search?”
The Queen’s eye had caught the flowers. She was all graciousness. She moved her Royal skirts aside, the other ladies hovered about the floor looking for the sparkle under chairs, in the corner, Emma hunting with the best of them.
Triumph! A little cry! She held it up, laughing. “Under the pedal of the forte-piano. Why hadn’t I the sense to look there at first? Ladies, with Her Majesty’s permission, I must tell you the story of that ring.”
Permission charmingly given, all the ladies a-tiptoe to hear, the Princess Belmonte fanning herself prettily behind the Queen’s chair.
“Your Majesty, His Excellency had promised me a ring if I studied my solfeggi as I ought. I laboured for hours daily. The ring was bought—I knew that—but I was not to see it until my birthday. And then a terrible thing happened. In arranging the flowers I knocked down his famous Pompeian figurino and broke it!”
Dramatic pause. Cries of sympathy and horror from the ladies. Her Majesty laughing at Emma’s tragic face.
“My good husband was furious. My birthday should not be kept. I should have no ring. Was it fair, Your Majesty, Ladies? I decided it was not.”
“No, not fair!” they chorused. “A bargain is a bargain!”
“So I thought. And the night before my birthday, while my husband slept I turned out his pockets! Ladies, behold a brigand! I found the case. I put on the ring, and in the morning I wished myself many happy returns in his presence and flourished the ring in his face!”
Loud applause. Cries of “Were you forgiven?”
“Ladies, need you ask? What husband does not forgive his wife if she plays her game rightly? Next day he asked my forgiveness. But the ring is useful as a reminder.”
She asked a thousand pardons of Her Majesty and made her gay curtsey and went off again, and kneeling close, with her mouth at his ear, told the story, trembling, to Sir William. He approved warmly.
“Splendid—done as it was on the spur of the moment! She will get that paper to-night if it exists. Oh, Emma, I am but a burden on you, ill and in pain as I am, and this may be vital.”
“I can manage it,” she said, and fell into deepest thought.
It was next evening towards dusk that a boy with a basket of flowers approached her again, leaning against the balustrade of the garden and humming a song of the people to himself in a sweet low murmur.
“Flowers, Excellenza, flowers. For the pity of God!” She bought at once. That was no novelty. The Neapolitans knew that the Lady of the Embassy rejected no appeal for mercy. She flew to her own room. A paper in cipher, with no covering letter. A great glow overspread her face. Her knees knocked together, so that she could scarcely make her way to Hamilton’s room, where he sat, his foot swathed up against the gout; old, ill, querulous.
But all that dropped aside as he saw the cipher. He said, “This may be of the very first importance. We must do it alone.”
She touched the bell quietly, trembling with eagerness, and listened while he gave his order for the Embassy ciphers to Trevylyan, the young secretary chosen for him by the Hamilton interest. Not even he must see the result. Patiently they sat up half the night decoding the brief letter, for brief it mercifully was. Spain was definitely to leave the Alliance and cast in her lot with France. In future the French and Spanish fleets would sail together.
It was reciphered into the English cipher, and Emma put the original in her bosom. By heaven’s own luck the courier was, in any case, to start that night with despatches, and it was nothing to include this among them.
Sir William signed it; she sealed and despatched it. He looked her in the face when it was done.
“Emma, my love, you have deserved well of your country. The party at home for evacuating the Mediterranean will look small enough when this is known. Now set your bright wits to work to restore the original to the Queen. I will write myself to King George.”
He did so with the proud realization that Emma, could all the story be told, had become a trustworthy and successful diplomatic agent. It could not be told in fulness, for the Queen’s name must be hidden. But from his heart he admired Emma’s coolness and address. She visited the Palace next day with drawings by Gavin Hamilton of the Villa Favourita, the Queen’s favourite summer villa, and it was easy in the give and take of papers to pass the cipher. The King never knew he had been robbed, but the English Cabinet made use of its knowledge.
There was no more talk of evacuating the Mediterranean, and the bond between the two women was strong as steel. The whole episode advanced Sir William at home. He grew daily in importance.
Her life became one of passionate interest. She corresponded not infrequently with Nelson, for that again might pass as friendship. The secrets for co-operation of the French and Spanish fleets filtered amazingly to England, and back to the English Admirals, and none could lay their finger on the source. King Ferdinand could scarcely suspect the Queen for he kept her in utter ignorance. And Emma—Emma was the soul of the whole conspiracy, the invaluable servant of England, of her Queen, and her husband.
Well might she say, “My position in this Court is now very extraordinary”—there was little vanity in that statement. My Lady Hamilton was a prima donna in earnest. And her stage was Europe.
And the years darkened slowly down, as the rising comet of Napoleon swept into the established systems, dragging half the heavens in his train.
The English Fleet, most absolutely for the whole world, for its last hope of freedom, all, all depended on those silent admirals, those wearied captains at watch in the Mediterranean. Since the visit of the Agamemnon Emma had never seen Nelson, yet she had not forgotten him, nor the sense of something dynamic, unforeseeable, with which he had inspired her. He was hawking all over the Mediterranean since Corsica was taken. He had lost an eye. He had lost an arm. He was Sir Horatio now. Items reached her, but little more. And the thought haunted her that her work was what he would applaud if he could know it. She was Patroness of the Navy to some purpose, if she could only boast herself as she dared not.
The Two Sicilies were forced to a hateful compact with France. They dared not break it; if they did, the kingdom, trembling to a republic under French domination, must fall.
Oh, for an English Fleet! That was the prayer of Emma and of Marie Caroline day by day. They appealed to Sir John Jervis, now Lord St. Vincent, commanding in the Mediterranean, for help, help, at any cost.
And then a great, a terrible portent broke upon the world, holding its breath in terror. Napoleon, not yet thirty years old, who had been making great and secret preparations, had launched a mighty expedition on Egypt, resolving to catch England by the throat where she might be easiest strangled and shaken from her domination in India. Nelson knew, the world knew, of preparations at Toulon, but not a soul where the blow would fall until the fox had slipped cover and it was too late. He was doubling down the Mediterranean eastward, confusing the scent by every means in his power. And Nelson was pursuing him, hampered by misinformation, by the lack of frigates, scouts of the Fleet, but steadfastly pursuing.
And on that pursuit the fate of Europe hung. It is easy even now to picture the fever of hope and fear in Naples and in Sir William’s and Emma’s hearts. They knew, none better, that the British Fleet would need the sinews of war, food and water. Ships, like armies, fight on their bellies. But yet the compact with the French hindered the necessary aid from the Sicilian King. Further, it forbade the Sicilian kingdom to receive at any time more than four frigates at once into any of the King’s harbours.
Napoleon was taking no risks. He had burned the prairie behind him.
True, Nelson had his secret instructions to seize food and water by force of arms if no better could be, but that was doubtful, was an insult to the Sicilian King, and therefore playing into Napoleon’s hands, and must be his last and dangerous resort.
But what was to be done? Food and water refused, Gibraltar, far off Gibraltar at the mouth of the Mediterranean, was Nelson’s nearest port of help, and with that throwing back on his trail Egypt lay free before Napoleon.
Nelson had been in frequent correspondence with the Hamiltons though he had never seen them since the Agamemnon up-anchored in the Bay of Naples. His mind reverted often to his friend Emma; for friend every officer in that ship had felt her to be, and Nelson most of all. But still more it hovered about her influence with the Queen. That Ferdinand in his purblind folly had been playing fast and loose with France and Spain, all knew. But the Queen? She at all events had the wit to defend her dynasty by truth to England. Or so he believed. Could she be trusted?
He wrote to Emma, interweaving his stern meaning with compliments, allusions to the charming Queen and so forth, and waited for her answer eagerly. She would understand—trust her for knowing what her country needed!
Her answer returned. The Queen was staunch. Her own influence with her had grown and strengthened. What could she do to help? Let him but be frank and he would find her with Sir William at his back. He kissed that letter, not for love’s sake, not a breath of it, unless the true flash from comrade to comrade be called love—as indeed it should until we find as many words as the Greeks for that most under-labelled passion.
From that moment his mind was steadfastly made up for Naples, though to no one but his commander in chief did he break his secret.
It was a lovely day in June, the water calm as a blue pearl, when Hamilton, in the room of the mirrors with Emma writing to his dictation at his elbow, sighted fore-running ships coming up from the westward to Ischia and so on to Capri. He started up. The pen fell from her hand and they stood together at the window fixed in suspense.
“Good God!” said she at last. “What will the King say? He leans on Austria now that Spain has broken under him. This is St. Vincent’s doing—but sure he knows the ships are forbid to enter.”
For, recognized almost publicly now as the Patroness of the Fleet, Admiral Lord St. Vincent had written to her that much depended on her communications with him. She warmed even the cool St. Vincent with her fire, as she did all who came near her.
“The picture you draw of the lovely Queen of Naples and the Royal Family would rouse the indignation of the most unfeeling. I am bound by my oath of chivalry to protect all who are persecuted and distressed.”
Sir William had laughed a little over that letter. It would have been long indeed before St. Vincent would have unbent to write it to him. Well, if women imported the element of romance into diplomacy, and it stirred men into action, so much the better. He was proud of his Emma.
“It’s St. Vincent’s doing!” she repeated, leaning on Hamilton’s arm. “Now who will be in command? I wish it might be Nelson.”
“My love,” replied Sir William sententiously, “such is your luck that I believe it will be whoever you have set your heart on. And, if it is not, that a frigate despatched by you to St. Vincent will bring your choice instantly. See—only two vessels are making into the bay. The bulk of the fleet is evidently to lie off Capri. Don’t I see boats lowering? Come down.”
They waited below and before an hour was over two post captains, brushed up and strictly on service, demanded a conference with the Ambassador—Captains Troubridge and Hardy, right-hand men of Admiral Nelson’s as the Embassy pair knew full well.
“Sir Horatio in command?” was Hamilton’s first question.
“Certainly.” Lord Hood had detached him to ask food and water for his own squadron in chase of the French. That was their errand. The Admiral would not land, for time pressed. What could be done with the Royalties? Emma was not present ostensibly. She did not know these men. But, by Sir William’s desire, she was stationed in the deep alcove where she could hear every word. It might well be vital she should.
The old difficulty, he told them. The King opposed, dallying weakly with Austria’s uncertain aid and hoping to keep well with France. The Queen, all British in sympathy, eager to help, and alas! the Fleet suspended between these two irreconcilables.
“What use to ask the King?” said Hamilton. “He will shift, temporise, play to gain time. Gentlemen, I regret to say it, but I have tried every avenue already to break that most infamous pact forbidding our ships to enter Sicilian ports freely. There is unfortunately a French busybody here, a regicide named Garat, a born spy, and everything that takes place is magnified out of all knowledge and packed off straight to France. Still, I can only suggest application to the King.”
An anxious wrinkle formed itself on Troubridge’s forehead: “But that will mean endless delay and the French may be anywhere. They will spin it out and time is diamonds. No other hope?”
“None, sir, I regret to say. You must have a ministerial order for food and water.”
“Again that means delay,” said Hardy at Troubridge’s shoulder, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. His face showed that suspense galled him cruelly. “Not only so, your Excellency, but we need frigates like water in the desert. We are frigate-starved. We meant to ask for the Sicilian frigates.”
“They’ll never do that,” Sir William said decidedly. “Put it out of your head, my good sir. It would be an act of war on France. Leave it to me, and I’ll do what I can to get you a Royal order for victualling and water.”
The captains stood there dogged and disconsolate. Bad news to take back to Nelson and he fuming and raging as it was. Emma marked all from her retirement. Sir William left the room to make himself ready and still the two men waited there, not exchanging a word, evidently on tenter-hooks.
Presently back came the Ambassador, and away they went. She could hear the carriage rolling down the street. She slipped from her hiding place and stood a minute to think, then flew upstairs, light as the Emma of Up Park, and into the stately plumed hat and long silk cloak, and ordered her own carriage. The Queen should know the rights of this business. It was two o’clock when the men got back from the audience and Troubridge carried a paper in his hand and a frowning dissatisfied face above it. A ministerial order written under the King’s eye, hedged with conditions, barbed with restrictions, to the governors of the Sicilian ports, permitting the wounded to be taken ashore, and victualling and water to be accorded under certain circumstances, in case of need.
“And I’m a Dutchman,” said Hamilton, flinging himself exhausted into a chair, “if you get anything out of that damned order. For why? Isn’t it obvious it can be twisted any way, and, if convenient, the King can send a hint to throw every damned difficulty in your way?”
Troubridge also swore quietly as he sat and looked at the paper. It was better than nothing and that was all. A diplomatic shift to fob them off and please the French. Indeed, it might prove worse than nothing and a mere loss of time. The two sat silent, thinking dangerous thoughts. If it came to forcing the Sicilian King, as it very well might, why, then—neither of them cared to consider the consequences.
And as they sat, her Excellency entered, still plumed and cloaked, pale with some feeling she did not disclose, but greeting them warmly and kindly.
“Sir William, I would give much to see our old friend the Admiral before he puts to sea. Would there be any objection on the part of these officers if we ordered our own yacht and went back with them to Capua?”
Her eye warned him; he was cordial at once. “Why, certainly, it would be a pleasure to see Sir Horatio and I might well be able to give him some hints that would be useful with the governors whom I know. Would a lady be in the way, Captain Troubridge? And how is the wind?”
“Fair.” No difficulty about that, but every moment was precious. Could her Excellency hasten?
“I am ready now,” said Emma. “Let us go.”
She spoke scarcely a word while the swift yacht cut the water to Capri but sat, wrapped, as it were, in her own thoughts. The two captains had so much to discuss with Sir William that they were well content that it should be so. It was no time for small talk with even the most charming of women. What Nelson would say to bringing her aboard they could not tell. Sir William must answer for that.
It was dusk when they boarded the Vanguard, her riding light lit, and her huge bulk dim and mysterious in the twilight. Blue Peter already flying, the yacht had, of course, been sighted and Nelson was at the gangway, eager to see the Ambassador, who might have news of the first consequence, and unconscious of the slight figure that crouched abaft. He started back in surprise when he saw her. Only the rope ladder for the men was available but he had a chair rigged up instantly and had her hoisted on deck. She stood there silent for a minute and motioned to her husband.
“I have a word for you, Admiral,” he said easily, “and her Excellency wished to bid you Godspeed on your errand. Can we be private?”
Without a word, Nelson led the way to his cabin. His mind was so pressed with anxieties that his only thought was of the result of Troubridge’s errand ashore.
“Have they got the order?” he asked.
“After a fashion, yes. But I fear not one that will serve your purpose, sir,” said Hamilton. “You know the King of old, and this time he shelters himself behind his Minister. We must hope for the best, unless indeed—”
He looked at Emma. His hope was that the Queen might have sent some offer to deal with the King. Her silence promised, not fulfilment, but possibility.
“Sir Horatio, I rejoice to see y